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ON THE ROAD Journal of the Anabaptist Association of Australia and New Zealand
No. 45, June 2010
Anabaptists & The Old Testament
On The Road 45, June 2010 2
Contents OTR 45, June 2010 (Revised Edition)
From the Editor .................................... 2
The View From Ephesians 4
Mark and Mary Hurst .......................... 3
President’s Report
Doug Sewell ......................................... 4
Anabaptists and the Old
Testament Vox Populi ............................................ 5
Ethnic Cleansing in Deuteronomy 7
Philip Friesen ........................................ 6
Moses’ Social Vision
Philip Friesen ........................................ 8
What are we to Make of Violence
in the Book of Habakkuk?
Jeanette Mathews ............................. 12
Enemy Love
Mark Hurst ............................................ 14
Visions of God
John Olley ............................................ 16
God Behaving Badly?
Nathan Hobby .................................... 21
Jesus and Scripture
Dave Andrews .................................... 24
General Articles Christianity, Christi-Anarchy & Killing
Dave Andrews .................................... 25
Member Profile
Gary and Eleanor Baker .................... 29
Books: The Naked Anabaptist
Doug Hynd and Nathan Hobby ...... 31
On The Road Submissions ................. 33
Contributor profiles ............................. 34
From The Editor
Nathan Hobby
Perhaps you can thank a
university evangelical group for
the theme of this issue. I’ve been
troubled by aspects of the Old
Testament for a long time, but it
was seeing a poster on campus
last year that opened up the wound for me. Above a
photo of human skulls (reminiscent of Cambodia’s
Killing Fields) was an advertisement for a Bible talk
with the eye-catching headline, ‘God’s Genocide’ - no
question mark. No-one could accuse them of trying to
downplay the violence in the Old Testament. Is this
the sort of God I worship? Is this what it means to be
a disciple of Jesus? I was disturbed; yet I’m sure in
their defence, they would insist they were only saying
what the Bible says.
So what are we to make of violence in the Old
Testament? Anabaptists don’t agree on this, but it’s a
conversation worth having. Americans Eric Seibert
(p.21) and Philip Friesen (p.8) have both recently
published books with two different approaches.
Australians Jeanette Mathews (p.12) and Dave
Andrews (p.24) also provide some hermeneutical
strategies, while Mark Hurst (p. 14) shows the strands
of enemy love through the Old Testament that Jesus
drew on. John Olley (p.16) gives a welcome
constructive reading of the Old Testament in his
article on Ezekiel, reminding us, if we needed it, that
violence isn’t the only thing in the Old Testament.
This issue also carries two reviews of Stuart Murray’s
important new book, The Naked Anabaptist (p.31), a
wonderful introduction to Anabaptism for countries
like Australia without Mennonite churches.
The next issue will be an Australian Federal Election
special; please see the back page for details. I’m also
hoping to run an issue soon dedicated to the work of
John Howard Yoder, including the large number of
posthumous publications and the growing number of
critical responses. Please let me know if you think you
might have something to contribute.
Cover: Rembrandt - “Jeremiah Lamenting the Destruction of
Jerusalem” (1630)
On The Road 45, June 2010 3
The AAANZ Executive Committee met
recently in Melbourne to do some dreaming and
planning for the future of the association. The
question came up ‘What does it mean to be a
member of AAANZ?’
We hear this question often enough that a
serious discussion around the membership
question is needed. We began the discussion
during our planning days but we want to open it
up to others as well.
For some the language of ‘membership’ evokes
images of formal organisations with rules,
regulations, and dues. Members have rights and
privileges but also responsibilities. Infractions of
the rules can result in membership being
withdrawn.
For others, the question arises ‘What do I get
out of membership?’ In our individualistic
culture people want something material and
tangible for their money and time invested.
From its beginning, AAANZ has been more of
a ‘network’ than a formal organisation. Sure, we
are an incorporated religious organisation but
the way we have functioned has been as a social
network of people sharing common values and
dreams.
The AAANZ Executive Committee discussed
the question ‘What wording do we use if we
drop the formal membership language?’ There
were a number of suggestions.
We were reminded that our journal is called ‘On
The Road’ for a reason. We like the imagery of
disciples journeying with Jesus on the road of
our everyday lives. The disciples travelling to
Emmaus walked with Jesus and experienced
exhilaration from their experience. “Were not
our hearts burning within us while he was
talking to us on the road?” (Luke 24:32a)
So should we call AAANZ members “fellow
travellers”?
It was in the breaking of bread together that
the Emmaus road disciples recognised Jesus.
Being at table with others is a powerful
experience and image for Christians and one
we celebrate often in Communion or the
Lord’s Supper.
Should we call AAANZ members
“companions” – which comes from the Latin
meaning ‘with bread’?
Other New Testament passages refer to
followers of Jesus as ‘pilgrims’ and ‘sojourners’
both carrying the image of someone on a
journey. This is the image we are trying to
capture for membership in AAANZ. We want
people who are sharing the journey of being on
the road with Jesus to come and join us – as
companions, fellow travellers. We want to
support each other on the journey, help each
other find the way, and pick each other up
when we falter.
What do you think? What words or images
work for you? Please share your thoughts with
us.
Another thing that came out of our planning/
dreaming meetings was the desire to see more
small groups started around both OZ and NZ
to bring people together in community. We
are interested in what small groups are already
functioning in our network – table fellowships,
house churches, Bible/book studies, support
groups, etc.? Are there ways AAANZ can
support your group? Are there materials that
you have found helpful and would like to share
with others? Again, we value your input on
this.
As we walk together following Jesus on the
road, let’s keep talking together and sharing the
highs and lows of our common journey.
The View From Ephesians 4 ‘To prepare all God’s people for the work of Christian service’
Mark and Mary Hurst, AAANZ staffworkers
On The Road 45, June 2010 4
Did you know that some of the very earliest maps of
Terra Australis describe the continent as La Austrialia
del Espiritu Santo.... the southland of the Holy Spirit?
In 1605-1606, Portuguese navigator Pedro Fernandes
de Queirós crossed the Pacific in search of the
mysterious Terra Australis. The expedition reached
the islands later called the New Hebrides, now the
nation of Vanuatu. Queirós landed on a large island
which he took to be part of the southern continent,
and named it La Austrialia del Espiritu Santo. The
island is still called Espiritu Santo. Here he stated his
intention to establish a colony, to be called Nova
Jerusalem.
Even though the Portuguese explorer got his
geography wrong, his naming of the southern
continent describes very well with its character. The
ancient Australian land mass has a spiritual quality
that is also embodied in Aboriginal myth and
dreamtime. The harsh coloured landscape fascinates
me as a photographer. I find the same rough forms
and light in the mountainous and barren Sinai
peninsular where the liberated Old Testament tribe of
Israel sojourned and wrestled with their God,
Yahweh.
By comparison, the newness of Aotearoa, the Maori
land of the long white cloud - New Zealand - offers,
like Pentecost, something fresh and invigorating in
spirit. The old land and new are connected together in
tension.
There are awakenings of the spirit in both Australia
and New Zealand. Where the traditional magisterial
church of Anglo-Irish heritage is in decline, there are
Christian groups and communities finding new and
radical ways to express a home-grown identity born of
dynamic spiritual groundings.
The Anabaptist tradition with its European roots may
seem at first incongruous and out of place in Australia
and New Zealand. Yet as a grass roots dissident
movement that calls for a faith that is somewhat
reckless and engaging, Anabaptism captures the naked
spirit of these two great southern lands.
The AAANZ executive met recently in Melbourne to
map out directions for the next two years for the
Anabaptist association and our broad network. The
directions acknowledge the emerging radical spirit.
There will be a number of ways that we can connect
and get involved.
I am very excited by the theme of the AAANZ
Conference to be held in New Zealand next year. The
idea of living faithfully in the midst of or on the edge
of empire is at the heart of the conference. Stuart
Murray of the Anabaptist Network in the United
Kingdom will be coming to speak to us about the
message of his new book Naked Anabaptism: The Bare
Essentials of a Radical Faith—reviewed in this issue on
p.31.
Don't miss coming to the conference, which is
located in a beautiful valley at the southern end of the
north island of New Zealand. The conference dates
are Wednesday 9th to Thursday 10th February 2011.
Passionfest will follow on from our conference,
running from 11th to 13th February at the same
location - Ngatiawa Camp, Waikanae, a rural retreat
centre one hour drive north of Wellington.
Passionfest is an annual event that draws a lot of New
Zealand Christian groups together. There will be a lot
of synergy with the two events held back to back that
will make for an incredible week of gusty discipleship
down under.
I will keep you up to date with the events and
registrations will soon be open online at
www.anabaptist.asn.au.
Great South Land of the Holy Spirit President’s Report
Doug Sewell, AAANZ President
On The Road 45, June 2010 5
Julie Brackenreg
How do I respond?
I recoil with horror.
I ask “who is this god – this stranger, this, not-Jesus,
god?”
I seek to find excuses for this god –
For myself and especially for those who ask hard
questions –
I have no answer.
I go to the books.
I consult “why does this god say this?”
I look for answers from the wise –
For myself and especially for those who ask hard
questions –
I find no answer.
There are times I cannot understand.
I feel shamed by my lack of insight.
I cannot reconcile my heart with my head.
I cannot reconcile my head with the god my heart
knows.
I retreat to a safe space with a safe god.
Vox Populi The Voice of the People on… the Old Testament
Robert Gilland God is the potter I am the clay.
I only exist because He exists.
I cannot even begin to judge God.
I am glad he hasn’t wiped me off the planet as he has
every right to, as I am a very good at sinning.
My main question is why hasn’t God killed everyone,
I mean ,why hasn’t God killed me?
I mean we are pure scum compared to Him.
From what I can tell of Heaven it is a pure place.
A place of only light and no darkness.
I am full of darkness.
So why should God want to have a relationship with
me?
I mean If I was God I wouldn’t.
When the LORD your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many
nations—the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and
stronger than you— and when the LORD your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them,
then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy.
- Deuteronomy 7:1-2
How do you respond to the Canaanite genocide passages in the Old
Testament like this one, where the Israelites are commanded to kill the
Canaanites and take the promised land for themselves?
Detail from: Nicolas Poussin -“The Victory of Joshua over Amorites” (1624-1626)
On The Road 45, June 2010 6
Ethnic Cleansing in
Deuteronomy 7 A Homily
By Phillip Friesen
1 When the LORD your God brings you into the land that you are about to enter and occupy, and he clears away many nations before you—the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations mightier and more numerous than you—
2 and when the LORD your God gives them over to you and you defeat them, then you must utterly destroy them. Make no covenant with them and show them no mercy.
3 Do not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons, 4 for that would turn away your children from following me, to serve other gods. Then the anger of the LORD would be
kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly. 5 But this is how you must deal with them: break down their altars, smash their pillars, hew down their sacred poles, and
burn their idols with fire. 6 For you are a people holy to the LORD your God; the LORD your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on earth
to be his people, his treasured possession.
- Deuteronomy 7:1-6
In the Biblical story of God and God’s people, there is
an ongoing conversation between God and God’s peo-
ple about which a number of questions need to be asked
when approaching a text like this one in Deuteronomy.
We will look at two. (1) In this particular passage are we
reading God’s side of the conversation or humankind’s?
Is this the final conclusion, or are we jumping in to the
middle of a conversation before a conclusion has been
reached? (2) What is the spiritual purpose of these in-
structions in their social context? To what degree does
this apply to our context?
History is the story of invasions. Ethnic cleansing fol-
lows ethnic cleansing as surely as robins follow spring
and snow follows winter. Animals migrate and clash
over territory, as do humans. It all belongs to the natural
order that Darwin described as competition and survival
of the fittest. Tony Maalouf (in Arabs in the Shadow of
Israel, Kregel 2003) describes how God preserved Ish-
mael in the desert for the past 4000 years in a place that
no one wished to invade. Living in the world’s most
inhospitable environment was the only way to guarantee
survival over the long term. We can see God’s hand in
that.
In the beginning God commanded humans to fill the
earth. There were two possible ways to do this. One was
by marrying the neighbor’s daughter and creating an-
other garden next to your parents’ garden. That was the
easy way. The other was by getting into a fight over the
On The Road 45, June 2010 7
water in the river and moving far away where another
river could be found. Unfortunately our ancestors chose
the hard way, but even when we choose the hard way,
God is still involved to fulfill his own good purpose.
The issue underlying Deuteronomy 7:1-6 is concern for
Israel to be holy before its Creator. The spirit-animated
universe of the pagans was a toxic environment for faith
in God. In that environment it was always best to ap-
pease all gods and avoid offending any of them. Even if
they didn’t exist, it was surely safer to assume they did
and not take chances. Israel secularized the world by
insisting these gods not be worshiped or acknowledged.
It was a dangerous experiment, and the survival of the
Israelites depended upon the new idea being right.
Moses’ insistence upon a complete ethnic cleansing of
the area is not the only ethically questionable problem
one finds in the Old Testament. Another equally trou-
bling example is found Ezra 9-10. Those who had mar-
ried foreign wives were forced to divorce them. This is
violence against the bedrock of what it means to be hu-
man according to Genesis 1 & 2, which Jesus affirmed in
Matthew 19.
Did God command Ezra to do this? I see nowhere in
these chapters to certify these specific orders came from
God. Ezra had come back from exile and the scars of
captivity were stamped on his mind. Ezra knew the first
commandment and the bitter consequences of ignoring
it. Doubtless Ezra had read Deuteronomy 7:3 about
intermarriage, and he applied the commandment in the
only way he knew, but we must remember the conversa-
tion was not over. When Ezra had finished speaking,
God still had more to say. Later Malachi wrote, “I hate
divorce,” and the conversation moved ahead with new
revelation.
Both Moses and Ezra were dealing with infection con-
trol. In our medical system, we isolate patients with cer-
tain infectious diseases from the general population. In
ancient Israel the general population was infected and
Israel was the only healthy group. But Israel had ex-
tremely low immunity, as for them, the old gods of na-
ture still made a lot of sense (just as they do to repagan-
ized westerners today). In order to deal with the infec-
tion and preserve the only healthy specimen he had,
Moses ordered an evacuation of all infected specimens
and complete isolation of Israel from the local inhabi-
tants, something that never fully happened. In one case,
a group of Gibeonites, who did not wish to fight with
Israel (Joshua 9-10), were preserved against Moses and
Joshua’s intentions. God saw what Joshua did not see,
and for us to see this event as divinely directed fits right
in with the over-all Biblical story of grace.
At the time of the conquest, Israel was learning that God
was Lord of all the earth, and not a local Deity. The land
belonged to Yahweh, and certain obligations were owed
him by anyone living on his land. Yahweh had a right to
police his own territory, and he could send hornets
(Deuteronomy 7:20), bad weather, or use any other
means to dispossess renters who had not paid their rent
or fulfilled other obligations to him. Frequently God
used a marauding army or rising empire to do the eviction.
In the case of Israel’s invasion, the one thing made clear to
Israel was that they could never congratulate themselves on
their own bravery and strength (Joshua 24:12), and they
must devote all booty to Yahweh (Joshua 7). It was Yahweh
who policed the area, and everything they found in the land
belonged to Yahweh.
In his book, The Scapegoat, Rene Girard describes how that
history is written by the persecutors. The scapegoats of
society are inevitably left dead or deposed such that no one
ever hears their story. According to Girard, the gospel story
is uniquely the first story in history written from the per-
spective of the innocent scapegoat. This means that even
much of the Old Testament is written from the perspective
of the persecutors.
Girard goes on to say that Jesus uses the language of the
persecutors in the parables, because that is the only lan-
guage available. Applied to the passage in Deuteronomy,
God also uses the resources of the system, allowing himself
to be imprisoned (or shall we say incarnate) within the
thought and language of the people he seeks to save. In so
doing, the conversation moves onward. Understanding and
speaking the same language is fundamental to effective
propagation. This is lesson 1 of Missiology 101.
Despite the violent expulsion of the Canaanites, we can see
God at work for justice immediately after the conquest by
Joshua in the fact that as soon as Israel became complicit in
persecution of its neighbors, God’s blessing ceased. A sel-
dom-noticed passage in Judges 1:30-35 tells us Israel had
begun to enslave its neighbors rather than evict them.
When the former slaves in Egypt had themselves become
slave masters, the very next chapter describes a messenger
from God who arrived to declare God’s imminent depar-
ture from the scene and disengagement from Israel. They
would no longer be able to count on his protection from
their enemies. God was not on the side of the persecutors.
The happened both in Judges and later again after Solomon
when the kingdom was divided.
In my book, The Old Testament Roots of Nonviolence I have
coined the term, “accommodating structures,” to describe
social arrangements God permitted due to unbelief in order
to limit the damage humans do. The idea comes from Jesus’
explanation for the divorce regulations at issue in Matthew
19. He said, “Moses wrote the divorce regulations because
of your hard hearts.” Ezra worked in the context of hard
hearts. The relationship to God was more primary and es-
sential than even the marriage bond. Divorce was permitted
as a concession for those living in darkness, but once the
Light of the World came, divorce became no longer be
acceptable. The conversation on this topic had been con-
cluded.
In the story of the conquest we also see how God entered
the world in Israel’s behalf, even working within the limita-
tions of their darkened minds to keep them aware of his
involvement. We must remember at that time the conversa-
tion was not over. Later when Jesus forgave his enemies on
the cross, the final word was spoken. From then on the
weapon that conquers has been the Word from the Con-
queror’s mouth (see Revelation 1:16, 2:16, 19:15).
On The Road 45, June 2010 8
A Nation of Priests You have seen what I did to the Egyptians,
and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and
brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you
obey my voice and keep my covenant, you
shall be my treasured possession out of all the
peoples. Indeed, the whole earth is mine.
Indeed, the whole earth is mine, but You shall
be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation ...
- Exodus 19:4–6
The first time the word ‘priest’ occurs in Exodus is in
the quotation above. Until this time the Hebrews had
no priests that we are aware of. The patriarchs offered
sacrifice directly to God and God spoke with them
when they prayed. The Egyptians, however, had
priests, and the concept was familiar.
A priest comes under the protection of the king who
requires his services. After the Exodus, as a liberated
people, the Hebrews now had a new government in
The Old Testament Roots of Nonviolence, chapter 5
Moses’ Social Vision By Philip Friesen
which Yahweh would be king. At Mt. Sinai Moses an-
nounced to the people of Israel that they would be-
come a “nation of priests” (NIV). As priests, Israel
would come directly under the protection of Yahweh.
What we see here is an early manifestation of “the
priesthood of all believers” in Moses’ vision, with a
missionary initiative through which the blessing of
Abraham would begin to spread to all the families of
the earth.
Following Moses’ announcement, the people agreed
to meet with Yahweh. The appointment to meet God
would be in three days (Exodus 19:9–22). When God
arrived, his royal train included thunder, lightning,
clouds, fire, smoke, earthquake, and the sound of a
trumpet, an instrument that would normally announce
the arrival of royalty.
During his speech God outlined the boundaries for
relationship that would govern in Israel as the condi-
tion for his protection and blessing. In the Ten Com-
mandments there was no mention of punishment.
There was only the understanding that these behav-
iors were the requirements of office for a nation of
priests. The consequence for transgression followed
the pattern of Genesis 2–3. In Genesis 2–3, the trans-
gression had resulted in expulsion from the garden
Originally published as Chapter 5 of The Old Testament Roots
of Nonviolence (Wipf and Stock, 2010) Used by permission of
Wipf and Stock Publishers.
The book is available from the publisher’s website:
http://wipfandstock.com
On The Road 45, June 2010 9
and exclusion from the tree that gives life. At Sinai,
the life-giving protection and provision of Yahweh was
conditional upon maintaining the moral boundaries
given. Only then would they remain qualified to be
God’s priests.
The presence of God at Mt. Sinai was too much for
the Hebrews. Just as Adam and Eve had cowered in
fear in Genesis 3, so the Hebrews found the presence
of God too fearsome to endure. They begged Moses
to go back up the mountain and talk with God in
their behalf, in effect, to be a priest for them. Moses
went up the mountain and returned with God’s laws,
detail upon detail, to be observed. It was clear the
people were not ready to be a nation of priests, and so
one tribe was chosen to be priests for the others. One
wonders whether the rest of the Pentateuch, begin-
ning with Exodus 21 would ever have been written
had the people agreed to be God’s priests and deal
directly with him without an intermediary. Later Paul
said that the law was added because of transgression.1
Mt. Sinai is the place where it was added.
There is a somewhat universal understanding that
holy men do not fight. Except in the case where the
priest assumes the role of monarch, normally the
priestly class is exempt from military service. As we
look at the Mosaic vision further, we will discover that
Moses envisioned a nation without any kind of mili-
tary defense system, one that came under the protec-
tion of Yahweh, and whose God other nations would
learn to respect. Even if Moses was not a pacifist as
the word is used today, he did oppose living in an
armed, military state.
Kingship Regulations Pacifism is uniquely a Christian idea. Centuries before
Jesus, the Greeks and Romans discussed the ethics of
war in their writings. Nothing like nonresistance was
ever seriously presented for consideration.2 Still, there
is a parallel debate in the Old Testament between ad-
vocates of monarchy and those who opposed it.
Robert Gnuse describes this ongoing Old Testament
critique of monarchy as follows: “The critique of
kings, especially by the prophets and the Deuterono-
mistic historians in ancient Israel, was the most stri-
dent we can find in the ancient world, and modern
biblical scholars and theologians would recognize
that. What we might not sense is how pervasive that
critique could be throughout the biblical text. Even
the portrayal of the ideal king or messiah who would
come someday is still a criticism of the existing insti-
tution of kingship in that age.”3)
The establishment of monarchy in Israel was initiated
during Samuel’s time due to an emergency of national
defense. Samuel was clearly opposed to monarchy,
but the elders demanded a king in order to prepare
for war. The irony was that the continued failure of
spiritual leadership, first under the priest, Eli, and his
sons, and then under Samuel’s sons, had precipitated
the crises (1 Samuel 2:11–4:22 & 8:1–22). The spiri-
tual leaders were not trustworthy; therefore God’s
help could not be counted on, and the people felt they
must defend themselves.
Those who opposed monarchy were not opposed to
war necessarily, but they believed that to establish and
maintain a standing army was not desirable or neces-
sary if God were king. They could claim the authority
of Moses, and the kingship ideals summarized in Deu-
teronomy 17 would have been a solid basis for their
opposition to monarchy.
When you have come into the land that the Lord your
God is giving you, and have taken possession of it
and settled in it, and you say, "I will set a king over
me, like all the nations that are around me," you may
indeed set over you a king whom the Lord your God
will choose. One of your own community you may set
as king over you; you are not permitted to put a for-
eigner over you, who is not of your own community.
Even so, he must not acquire many horses for him-
self, or return the people to Egypt in order to acquire
more horses, since the Lord has said to you, "You
must never return that way again." And he must not
acquire many wives for himself, or else his heart will
turn away; also silver and gold he must not acquire in
great quantity for himself. When he has taken the
throne of his kingdom, he shall have a copy of this
law written for him in the presence of the levitical
priests. It shall remain with him and he shall read in it
all the days of his life, so that he may learn to fear the
Lord his God, diligently observing all the words of
this law and these statutes, neither exalting himself
above other members of the community nor turning
aside from the commandment, either to the right or
to the left, so that he and his descendants may reign
long over his kingdom in Israel (Deuteronomy 17:14–
20).
The practical effects of this legislation would be as
follows:
1. The king was not to engage in the international
weapons trade by buying horses from Egypt.
2. The king was not to marry foreign princesses, but
rather keep his attention on his God-given work and
not be distracted by a harem. The effect diplomati-
cally of this regulation, however, would be to deprive
him of the most powerful chattel that a diplomat had
for keeping peace. A diplomatic marriage was the sur-
est guarantee of secure borders and peaceful trade
with one’s neighbors. (In John the Baptist’s time,
On The Road 45, June 2010 10
King Herod dumped the daughter of King Aretas of
Arabia in favor of Herodias’ mother, the wife of his
brother, Phillip, and the result was war.)4
3. The king was not to collect taxes to increase his
own wealth. This regulation combined with the ban
on the weapons trade quite effectively eliminated the
possibility of maintaining a standing army.
4. The king was to regularly study the Book of the
Law so as to be an obedience vassal of his Sovereign
who ruled from the heavens. By implication, if the
king needed help in terms of either the economy or
the national defense, he should first of all call upon
God, and not make entangling military alliances with
rival governments.5
Samuel’s concession speech (1 Samuel 8:10–13) re-
flects the ideas found in the Deuteronomy passage.
Later during the monarchy, the issue of foreign wives
and mutual defense treaties was a point of contention
between prophet and king in the case of Elijah (1
Kings 16:29–22:40), and also of Isaiah.6 (Isaiah 7, 2
Chronicles 28:16ff, and 2 Kings 16:1–20).
Scholars recognize Deuteronomy to have been writ-
ten late, at the time of Josiah or later; however, that
fact does not prove their sources were not genuinely
from Moses. It is not impossible that when the book
of the law was discovered in the temple during the
time of Josiah, that it contained all kinds of antimon-
archical materials. In fact, it is likely that such materi-
als would be hidden in the darkest corner of the tem-
ple away from eyes of the king.7 Steven Schweitzer
has demonstrated that the two poems in Deuteron-
omy 32–33 have most likely come from much earlier
sources than the actual writing of the Deuteronomis-
tic history, and may have formed the basis for it.8 I
take the position that Deuteronomy is genuinely from
Mosaic sources and suggest the editors kept the an-
cient poetry unedited as a fitting conclusion to their
work.
Warfare in Israel In Deuteronomy 1, Moses told the Israelites at
Kadesh Barnea at the border of Canaan, “Have no
dread or fear of them (the formidable Anakim of Ca-
naan). The Lord your God who goes before you, is
the one who will fight for you, just as he did for you
in Egypt, before your very eyes, and in the wilderness
where you saw how the Lord your God carried you,
just as one carries a child, all the way that you traveled
until you reached this place (Deut. 1:29–31).”
How does one carry a child? Does one place a knife in
the child’s hands for self-defense? And how much
fighting did the Hebrews do in Egypt? The obvious
answers are No and None. The news of Pharaoh’s
disaster would have reached Canaan ahead of the Isra-
elites. The inhabitants would have taken any small
natural disaster as a sign their fate would quickly be
the same as the Egyptians. Something as militarily
insignificant as a large swarm of hornets (see Exodus
23:28 and Deuteronomy 7:20) could start the panic so
the inhabitants would promptly flee.
Just as Abraham had walked into the land; so Israel
again could walk into the land and live there. If we
consider the promise to Abraham in Genesis 12:3 to
be the first installment of the great commission, then
it follows that as soon as the initial panic was over,
and Israel had a place to live, the refugees could have
come back to learn the ways of the God of Israel,
once the panic had subsided. This reasonable sugges-
tion follows from Moses’ vision to create a nation of
priests rather than a warrior state.
Unfortunately, in contrast to Abraham, his descen-
dents lacked the necessary trust in Yahweh. They had
crossed the Red Sea under duress, with Pharaoh’s
army closing in. Now at the border of Canaan without
the threat of violence behind them, the fear of vio-
lence ahead kept them from the blessing of God.
Forty years later when they crossed the Jordan River
into the land, the evangelistic opportunity had passed,
and the Hebrews had no idea what blessings they had
missed. Now they had to fight their way in.
It is possible the Hebrews really didn’t do so much
damage when they entered the land, as it would ap-
pear. Surely the Hebrews, like everyone else, were
sometimes given to bragging, but Joshua brought
them back to reality in his farewell address in the story
reported in Joshua 24:12. “I [the Lord] sent the hor-
net ahead of you, which drove out before you the two
kings of the Amorites; it was not by your sword or
your bow.” It was still the Lord’s doing. Millard Lind
has written about Joshua after the defeat of Jaban and
his allies in Joshua 11, “Israel was militarily inferior to
the enemy . . . Joshua’s hamstringing the horses and
burning the chariots suggest that inferiority was not
only forced upon Israel, but was abetted by deliberate
religious choice.”9 This conforms to what we read in
Deuteronomy 17:14–20.
Still, many will object to the ethnic cleansing ordered
by Moses in Numbers 33:52 or the genocide com-
manded by Samuel in 1 Samuel 15:3. First one needs
to recognize that during this early period, Israel typi-
cally fought as a band of shepherds and farmers using
the tools of their trade against armies better equipped
than they were, and room needs to be allowed for
some rhetoric of encouragement by those in leader-
ship who sent the peasants into battle. Secondly, these
murderous commands were given always after a pe-
riod of disobedience and unbelief. When hearts are
hard in unbelief, then violent structures of coercion
come into play, but God still may take an active role
On The Road 45, June 2010 11
in determining the outcomes. Thirdly, there were no
documents of human rights, rules of war, and or just
war theories at that time. All these should be seen as
effects of the gospel yeast at work in the loaf of hu-
manity since Jesus came. What was normative then
cannot be used as a model for our behavior now,
even if a Divine command was given.
Conclusion The kernel of a pacifist idea that we find in the Mo-
saic tradition appears to be an ethic that says some-
thing like this: It’s okay to go to war, but it’s not okay
to maintain an army, to stockpile weapons, or to take
any kind of threatening posture towards people
around you. If you really have to fight, cry out to God
and he will send a savior, but you must trust him
rather than depend upon the usual, accepted means of
self-defense. A nation of priests cannot be an armed camp
and at the same time represent God to the other nations.
Abraham was called to bless the nations in Genesis
12. Israel’s task was to provide light for the nations as
Isaiah later wrote (Isaiah 49:6, 51:4 60:3). Jesus told
his followers that they would be his light in Matthew
5:16. When enemies fear our army, but not our God,
the light has a basket covering it (Matthew 5:15). The
effect of Moses’ kingship regulations was to outlaw
the regular standing army so that when the need
arose, God’s power could be displayed instead.
BIBLIOGRAPHY Duriez, Colin. The Year That Changed The World.
Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006.
Gnuse, Robert K. “An Overlooked Message: The
Critique of Kings and Affirmation of Equality in the
Primeval History.” Biblical Theological Bulletin 36 no. 4
(Winter 2006) 146–154.
Lind, Millard. Yahweh Is a Warrior. Scottdale, PA: Her-
ald Press, 1980.
Monroe, W.D. “Must We Relegate Deuteronomy to
the Reign of Josiah?” The Evangelical Quarterly 8 no.
1, January 15, 1936.
Reichberg, Gregory M., et al, The Ethics of War: Classic
and Contemporary Readings. Oxford: Blackwell, 1988.
Schweitzer, Steven. Deuteronomy 32 and 33 as Proto-
Deuteronomic Texts. Proceedings, Eastern Great
Lakes and Midwest Biblical Societies 22, 2002.
Thompson, J.A., “Deuteronomy,” Tyndale Old Testa-
ment Commentaries. Downers Grove: IVP, 1975.
1Galatians 3:19. Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring would come to whom the promise had
been made; and it was ordained through angels by a mediator. 2See Reichberg, The Ethics of War, Classic and Contemporary Readings, Oxford: Blackwell 1988. 3Gnuse, 147. 4Colin Duriez, 207. 5J. A. Thompson, "Deuteronomy”, 206. “That a copy of the covenant law should be in the hand of the king has an interesting parallel in
the secular suzerainty treaties of the ancient Near East. A duplicate of the treaty was provided for the vassal king and was to be read in
public periodically. The suzerain also kept a copy which he deposited in the sanctuary of his god. In a similar way Israel’s king was re-
quired to have a copy of Yahweh’s covenant stipulations …In the only detailed description of a coronation ceremony in the Old Testa-
ment, the boy king Joash was crowned and presented with ‘the testimony’ (edut) i.e. the covenant stipulations” (2 Kings11:12). 6Isaiah does not mention foreign wives in his critique, but he firmly opposes Ahaz’ defense arrangement with the Assyrian Empire. 7W. D. Monroe, M.A., “Must We Relegate Deuteronomy to the Reign of Josiah?” 3–21. 8Steven Schweitzer, “Deuteronomy 32 and 33 as Proto-Deuteronomic Texts,” 79–98. 9Yahweh Is a Warrior, chapter 4, esp. p 87.
On The Road 45, June 2010 12
What Are We to Make of Violence in
the Book of Habakkuk? By Jeanette Mathews
Over the past two and a half years I have been
working on a PhD thesis studying the book of
Habbakuk. It is an intriguing book with its many
different moods, perspectives and literary genres. In
its three short chapters can be found prayers
including complaints, laments and praise, prophetic
oracles, taunts and woes, a call to worship midway
through the book and a theophany (an appearance of
God) in the pattern of a victory hymn. In addition,
there are allusions to psalms and wisdom material.
The prophet Habakkuk fluctuates between despair
and faith, uttering some of the most audacious
complaints against his God from the depths of his
anguish, but also words that have been treasured by
Paul, Luther and Christians down through the ages
(see Habakkuk 2:4 and Habakkuk 3:17-18 – familiar
words indeed).
I love the Old Testament but like many others I am
troubled by the violent images and commandments
associated with Israel’s God. Habakkuk is one of
those troubling books where Yahweh is pictured as a
conquering warrior, marching through the land
wielding his weapons and wreaking havoc on the
natural world as well as the enemy nations of his own
people. This image comes in the third chapter, and
contrasts with a similar image in the first chapter of
the violent Chaldean forces personified by their king
“walking across expanses of earth to possess dwelling places not
his own” (Habakkuk 1:6, my translation). Is it then just
a show of power? “My might is bigger than your
might.”
Donatello - “Habbakuk”
On The Road 45, June 2010 13
The work that I have been doing with Habbakuk is
reading it through the lens of performance theory. In
simple terms, I have been reading the book of Habakkuk
as a script, alert to features of performance such as actor,
audience and setting. This is a book that begins and ends
in crisis. The opening words of the prophet (Habakkuk
1.2-4) suggest a situation of turmoil where injustice
reigns and no order is kept, giving rise to a bitter
complaint. The closing prayer – Habakkuk 3.16-19 –
describes a situation of calamity where all sources of
fertility have dried up, either due to the invading army or
to natural causes.
It is clear that for much of the book the crisis is of a
military nature. The description of the army’s approach
(Habakkuk 1.5-11), the prophet’s reference to being “on
guard” at the “siegeworks” (Habakkuk 2.1), mention of
plunder (Habakkuk 2.7-8), violence (Habakkuk 2.8-9, 17)
and bloodshed (Habakkuk 2.8, 12, 17) in the woe oracles
and the mention of an imminent invasion in the closing
scene (Habakkuk 3.16) all evoke a situation of warfare in
which the prophet’s community is in a vulnerable
position. As already stated, military imagery is also used
in the theophanic description of Yahweh as a warrior
with weapons and chariot (Habakkuk 3.3-15). Are we
therefore to understand the book of Habakkuk’s
message as the idea that violence is to be met with a
greater violence, personified in the Warrior God?
As I have thought about this question I have come up
with three features in the book of Habakkuk that help
question this military setting as the normative and
acceptable site for this particular revelation.
First, the prophet is described twice in an elevated status
– after his complaints he sets himself on siegeworks to
keep watch (Habakkuk 2:1) and at the end of the book
he claims to be on high places (Habakkuk 3:19). This
raised position which can be understood literally and
figuratively puts him on a par with Yahweh and gives
both his statements of complaint and his confessions of
faithful trust an equal significance to triumphalist
portraits of conquering warriors. Honestly expressed
pain, bewilderment and quiet conviction are intended to
be heard despite the sound and light shows of the
forceful destructiveness of the invading army on the one
hand and the thundering presence of Yahweh on the
other.
Second, the five woe oracles of Habakkuk 2:6-19
describe a paradoxical reversal of fortune for the
aggressor, indicating that the seeds of destruction are
contained within the system of tyranny. The Chaldean
king is taunted by his victims: “Shall not everyone taunt such
people and, with mocking riddles say about them, ‘Woe to
you’” (Habakkuk 2:6) but the description of his downfall
is presented as a consequence of his own actions rather
than as the result of a direct attack by Yahweh.
The third nuance preventing this performance’s
domination by military triumphalism is the observation
that natural and military imagery are merged in the
theophany. The realm of human experience is explored
to find appropriate descriptors for the presence of
Yahweh, so that his blinding presence is akin to looking
into the sun’s light (Habakkuk 3:4), thunderstorms
become thundering horse-drawn chariots (Habakkuk 3:8,
15) and lightning shafts become spears (Habakkuk 3:11).
Yahweh’s presence, although described in words
borrowed from warfare, is actually more pervasive than
an invading army because it encompasses the entire
natural world.
Another well known verse from the book of Habakkuk
comes at the end of Chapter 2: “But the Lord is in his holy
temple; let all the earth keep silence before him” (verse 20,
NRSV). At this point in the book the mood changes
from complaint and taunt to prayer and worship. In
many ways it is the high point of the book, suggesting
that despite the overall setting of crisis and the pervading
military imagery, the vision of Yahweh in his temple of
holiness is the central and dominant vision. When
Yahweh is in his place, all human words, movement and
power are ultimately silenced before him. The script
continues in prayer, vision and words of faith, so silence
is not the only response that is needed, but it does allow
pause for thought and reflection.
The character of God is portrayed in several ways in the
book of Habakkuk: a silent God who seems to ignore
human misery, a decisive God manipulating nations and
world events, a remote God whose holiness inspires awe
and worship, a God on the move shaking the
foundations of the earth, a Warrior God who comes to
save his people, a God who tenderly cares for
individuals. As soon as one characteristic is introduced
another takes its place. The prophet shows that he is
willing to adapt to respond to each of these
manifestations, especially in several references to
“waiting” (Habakkuk 2:1, 2:3, 3:16) but I think it is
significant that the script ends in movement (he makes me
walk, Habakkuk 3.19, my translation). Faith is active.
After this is a postscript inviting re-enactment in song.
For me, a preliminary response to the problem of
violence in the Old Testament is to recognise such
passages as one amongst many messages, all of which
have been preserved as equally significant. Struggling
with the meaning of such passages in our own situation
is an example of active faith. The book of Habakkuk, on
a small scale, also offers a multiplication of moods,
genres and perspectives, reminding the reader that
faithfulness cannot be static, but involves continual
reflection and re-enactment.
On The Road 45, June 2010 14
“God is a god who loves enemies and wants us to do the same.” We often tell our students this when we teach about peace and reconciliation. We believe this is the biblical message of good news that Jesus taught and modelled while on earth.
Where did Jesus get this idea? From what Christians often call the Old Testament. There is a tradition of enemy love that threads its way through the Old Testament and is then knitted together by Jesus. In this article, I want to look at some of those threads.
Thread Number One – Genesis 9: 12-17
God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.”
We were at a conference a few years ago where a number of scholarly papers were being presented. One was about the flood narrative in Genesis. In the middle of the presenter’s talk she said ‘the Hebrew word for bow (qeset) is also the word for a battle bow.’ And then she continued on with her presentation.
For me, this was one of those rare moments of revelation. I’ve heard the story of the flood all my life, starting with early accounts in my childhood Sunday School classes. I always heard ‘rainbow’ when the story was told or read. I never heard ‘bow’, as in
‘bow and arrow’.
What God was doing by hanging God’s bow in the clouds was disarming Godself. This was an act of disarmament right in the beginning of the biblical story. God refuses to take up this weapon of war against creation even when humanity turns to evil rather than to God – even when we become God’s enemies. Thus, every time we see a bow in the sky, we can remember God’s peace agreement between God and the earth.
Thread Number Two - 2 Kings 6:14-23 (English Standard Version)
The king of Syria sent horses and chariots and a great army, and they came by night and surrounded the city.
When the servant of Elisha rose early in the morning and went out, behold, an army with horses and chariots was all around the city. And the servant said, “Alas, my master! What shall we do?” He said, “Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” Then Elisha prayed and said, “O LORD, please open his eyes that he may see.” So the LORD opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. And when the Syrians came down against him, Elisha prayed to the LORD and said, “Please strike this people with blindness.” So he struck them with blindness in accordance with the prayer of Elisha. And Elisha said to them, “This is not the way, and this is not the city. Follow me, and I will bring you to the man whom you seek." And he led them to Samaria.
As soon as they entered Samaria, Elisha said, "O LORD, open the eyes of these men, that they may see." So the LORD opened their eyes and they saw, and behold, they were in the midst of Samaria. As soon as the king of Israel saw them, he said to Elisha, "My father, shall I strike them down? Shall I strike them down?" He answered, "You shall not strike them
Enemy Love By Mark Hurst
On The Road 45, June 2010 15
down. Would you strike down those whom you have taken captive with your sword and with your bow? Set bread and water before them, that they may eat and drink and go to their master.” So he prepared for them a great feast, and when they had eaten and drunk, he sent them away, and they went to their master. And the Syrians did not come again on raids into the land of Israel.
In this story told in 2 Kings 6, Elisha keeps warning the king of Israel about the king of Aram (Syria) and where he is planning to attack. The king of Aram thinks there is a spy in their midst. He is told about Elisha and where he is and sends a whole army after him. The passage above tells the story.
Elisha captures the enemy Syrian army and rather than kill them all, like the king wants, he treats them to a feast and sends them on their way home. The story ends with this note: ‘And the Syrians did not come again on raids into the land of Israel.’
Elisha’s creativity shines through in his refusal to accept the violent option so often chosen by kings. It is testament to a third way between using violence and doing nothing and leads to our next thread.
Thread Number Three - Proverbs 25:21-22
“If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat, and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink, for you will heap burning coals on his head, and the Lord will reward you.”
Elisha illustrated this response in 2 Kings 6. He chose good over evil; enemy love over enemy hate. The Apostle Paul uses this Proverbs passage in his instructions to the Romans (12:17-21).
What is all of this ‘coals on the head’ stuff? Scholars have numerous answers but the one that makes sense to me is this. In Bible times a person needed to keep his hearth fire going all the time in order to ensure fire for cooking and warmth. If it went out, he had to go to a neighbour for some live coals of fire. These he would carry on his head in a container, oriental fashion, back to his home. The person who would give him some live coals would be meeting his desperate need and showing him an outstanding kindness. If he would heap the container with coals, the man would be sure of getting some home still burning. The one injured would be returning kindness for injury.
Thread Number Four – Jeremiah 29:1-7
These are the words of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the remaining elders among the exiles, and to the priests, the prophets, and all the people, whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. This was after King Jeconiah, and the queen mother, the court officials, the leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, the artisans, and the smiths had departed from Jerusalem. The letter was sent by the hand of Elasah son of Shaphan and Gemariah son of Hilkiah, whom King Zedekiah of Judah sent
to Babylon to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. It said: Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.
The Jews were in a foreign land, enemy land. Read Psalm 137 to see how devastated they were. “How can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?”
Their local prophets were telling them that they would not be there for long. God would not do that to them. But Jeremiah had a different word from the Lord. Settle in, you are going to be there for a while. But even stranger was what he told them to do. ‘Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.’ The word translated ‘welfare’ is shalom. The rich Hebrew word means peace, wholeness, well-being, and welfare. Jeremiah was telling the Jews to pray for their enemies – the Babylonians – for the Jewish welfare (peace, security, etc.) is all wrapped up with their enemies’ welfare. Victims and offenders need each other to experience shalom.
Thread Number Five - Jonah
We often read the story of Jonah either as a big fish
story or the story of a reluctant missionary. But at the
heart of the story is “a gracious God and merciful, slow to
anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from
punishing” (4:2). This is a God who loves enemies –
even the hated people of Nineveh. And Jonah does
not like that! That is why he fled and why he wants to
die in chapter four. He would rather die than see
God forgive the hated enemy.
But Jonah knew what God was like. He could not
escape it and the story named after him stands as a
testimony to this loving, forgiving God.
Jesus knew about this enemy-loving God as well. He
captured these threads and others and told his
followers “Love your enemies and pray for those who
persecute you, so that you may be children of your
Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:44-45). This Father
God loves liberally and indiscriminately by sending
rain and sunshine on the good and the evil. Not in a
flood to destroy, but in proper amounts to nurture
and sustain creation. That is how we are to love
others – including our enemies.
On The Road 45, June 2010 16
Visions of God Worship in Times of Crisis and Compromise
By John Olley
Ezekiel and Revelation stand out in Scripture with
their extensive visions of God. Through the centuries
Revelation has been tapped for liturgical material,
often divorced from its literary and social context,
while Ezekiel has been almost absent. Perhaps this is
understandable. Many will sympathise with our family
experience around twenty five years ago: we began to
read Ezekiel in family devotions but before long the
cry was, ‘Do we have to continue?’ Although my
teaching area has been the whole Old Testament I
gave much attention to Isaiah and Jeremiah but barely
touched Ezekiel. Belatedly, in the nineties I decided to
look more closely at Ezekiel and then came an
invitation to write a major commentary on Ezekiel.
The process has changed me, including fresh
awareness of the goal and outworking of worship!1
I became aware of strong links between Revelation
and Ezekiel. Both visions are given to individuals in
exile, in times of uncertainty and crisis, and the
influence of Ezekiel permeates both content and
structure of Revelation.2 Both confront popular
dominant images of power, wealth and success in
times of conflict and compromise: their language and
descriptions match their cultural contexts but the
issues are perennial. Both together can help us reflect
on our own experiences and practices of worship in
relationship to daily trust and obedience in a complex
world. As John found language and patterns from
Ezekiel, adapting to his own cultural setting, so there
is encouragement for current use of both books,
seeking to contextualise in our own settings, but still
like John, in light of the Lamb who was slain and now
reigns.
Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld -“The Glory of God” (1851-60)
On The Road 45, June 2010 17
Visions and Cultural
Imagery Nothing could seem further from current weekly
worship experiences than the opening vision of
Ezekiel (ch. 1)! The description of the indescribable is
full of ‘looked (something) like’, ‘the appearance’, with
sounds ‘like’, culminating in ‘the appearance of the
likeness of’. Many will agree with Calvin, ‘If anyone
asks whether the vision is lucid, I confess its
obscurity, and that I can scarcely understand it’, but
he continues, ‘yet into what God has set before us, it
is not only lawful and useful but necessary to
enquire.’3 Some have found in it a source for mystical
ascension into the presence of God,4 although in
Ezekiel’s case ‘the glory of the LORD’ comes down
where he is ‘among the exiles’. That location is the
first unexpected element which may be passed over
today with our long experience of worshipping God
‘where we are’, shaped by words such as those of
Jesus to the woman by the well (John 4:21-24). The
Kebar River was in an ‘unclean land’ (Amos 7:17); the
people were there as a consequence of their moral
impurity, violent injustice and idolatrous worship and
it was a place of despair. One met God in the temple
in Jerusalem (cf. Ps. 42; Isa. 6:1), not in exile. Wright’s
contemporary reflection is apt:
There are times when our doctrinal
conviction of God’s omnipresence needs to
become an experienced reality again. Whether
through geographical distance, like Ezekiel’s,
or through more spiritual or emotional
alienation, the experience of exile from the
presence of God can be dark and terrible. …
We can certainly pray for the reassurance of
the touch of his hand reminding us that God
is there, even there.5
Was Ezekiel’s experience in exile one that facilitated
John’s being ‘in the Spirit’ on Patmos (Rev. 1:10)? I
well remember in 1989 at Lausanne II in Manila the
testimony of a Chinese pastor imprisoned in the
Cultural Revolution and given the task of cleaning the
cesspool: ‘That was where I had most freedom to
shout aloud my praise to God’!
Before any message is given to Ezekiel, before any
prophetic action, he ‘sees’. The vision of God shaped
his ministry. It opens with a ‘windstorm’ accompanied
by ‘flashing lightning’ and ‘brilliant light’. Jerusalem
may be threatened by the armies of Babylon and
would soon be destroyed, but the immensity of the
windstorm is an awesome sign that the God of the
exodus (Exod 19:16-19; 24:10; Hab 3:3-7) is not
threatened. Further, much of the following imagery
can be identified with ancient Near Eastern
iconography, including that used to awe visitors to
Assyrian palaces.6 Such imagery sought to reinforce
the legitimacy of a ruler, communicating power, status
and prestige. Ezekiel’s description of what the vision
was ‘like’ uses culturally available and communicable
imagery, not to domesticate and tame God, but to
challenge popular perceptions of power and success.
In Revelation again images of power, honour and
prestige are used to subvert the all-embracing symbols
of Roman might and wealth. The context of
Christians addressed by Revelation is much discussed,
but included are the all-pervading presence in Asia
Minor of the imperial cult, with commercial
implications, and pressures for religious compromise,
along with persecution.7 The portrayal of wealth is
dominant throughout the book, culminating in the
contrast between the wealth of Babylon (cipher for
Rome) and that of the new Jerusalem. Strikingly in the
lament over the fall of ‘Babylon’ (Rev. 18) the
language does not come from the oracles against
Babylon in Isaiah or Jeremiah (which focus on
military might, with resultant prosperity) but from
oracles against Tyre (a commercial power) in Ezekiel
26-28. This is directly relevant for worshippers in
consumer societies!
Pertinent for contemporary worship is Odell’s
summary and reflection on Ezekiel 1:
Though Ezekiel’s vision may well have been a
suprarational experience of divine
transcendence, the raw materials for the
vision are the cultural icons and political
rhetoric of the Assyrian empire, which had
exerted control over Israel and Judah for
centuries…. Ezekiel’s appropriation is
radically subversive… [he] asserts that the
only effective power in the lives of the people
of Israel is Yahweh…
In today’s world of constitutional
democracies, one searches in vain for a
metaphor that approaches Ezekiel’s in its
conveyance of divine universal order. In our
contemporary ways of speaking about God,
no other metaphor [than that of sovereign]
has the potential to still the many voices that
clamor for our allegiance, or to rebuke the
powers that sabotage our dignity.8
Dominant powers, whether political, military,
economic or cultural (commonly intertwined),
provide all-embracing and permeating images and
language of success and power, made even more
pervasive with twenty-first century media. There is
always the temptation to fall in line with such,
whether it be like King Ahaz in the eighth century BC
copying Assyrian altars (2 Kings 16:10-14), the later
Christian adopting of symbols of imperial power in
On The Road 45, June 2010 18
the Constantinian era or the material and economic
status symbols of much of the modern West. In all of
these comes the temptation for faith to be put at the
service of the dominant power, or for symbols to
point to the church and its leaders rather than to God.
The imagery of the visions of Ezekiel and John
provide a stimulus to examine the adequacy of divine
images in contemporary worship and to explore ways
in which the ‘raw materials’ of current ‘cultural icons
and political rhetoric’ (all part of our language) may be
used in a way that is ‘radically subversive’ in the
contexts of our congregations, pointing to the One
who alone is sovereign and present. The contrast
between the vision of God’s glory and the attitudes
and views of the exiles or of those still in Jerusalem
could not have been greater, but it was the vision of
God and what followed that was to be a key factor in
changing those attitudes! Drastic situations required a
vision of God’s glory, and a later vision of ‘God’s
glory displayed in the face of Christ’ (2 Cor 4:6) is still
having world-changing results. In the context of a
militaristic, might-honouring society John saw ‘a
Lamb, looking as if it had been slain’ but who
‘triumphs, along with his ‘called, chosen and faithful
followers’ (Rev 5:6; 17:14). The visions of Ezekiel and
John are examples of culturally relevant language that
critiques that same culture, giving glory alone to God
.
God First, Then Response The messages of Ezekiel and John began with a
divine vision, and regrettably it is not trite to say that
is where true worship begins, seeing God (now known
to be Father, Son and Spirit). In a recent article Mark
Galli commented:
Once upon a time, there was a man who said
to himself, "I think, therefore I am." It was a
revolutionary statement, because up to that
time, people didn't think this was the way to
begin. "In the beginning, God. …" Yes. "In
the beginning was the Word. …" Yes. But
now, for the first time, someone was saying,
"In the beginning, I."...9
He reflects on consequences and varying Christian
responses (read the article!), but the quote highlights
the cultural shift. We live in a society where ‘I’
determine ‘what kind of God I believe in (if any) – if
it’s relevant to me’ and where ‘thus says the Lord’ is
perceived as arrogance or ‘that’s just your view’.
Worship is then related to ‘meeting my needs’. While
today’s society focuses more on the individual, it
could also be said that at the times of Ezekiel and
John, people also followed the religious practices they
believed would give success. The biblical answer is a
revelation of the living God, above all in Christ. The
challenge for any worship service becomes, what
images of God are being presented? Are they captive
to cultural values or have we been able to ‘take every
thought captive to obey Christ’ (2 Cor. 10:4)?
Ezekiel’s response was, ’I fell on my face’ (Ezek.
1:28), an act of submission and worship common in
many cultures. Immediately he is told to ‘stand up’
and is raised by the Spirit to hear God speak to him
(2:1; also 3:24; 43:5). His being is determined by his
relationship with God: God has appeared to him and
he responds and is given a task. Recently Rosner
suggested that “the Enlightenment dictum of ‘I think,
therefore I am,’... might be revised to, ‘I am known,
therefore I am.”10 John’s response likewise was to ‘fall
at his feet as though dead’ and immediately he is told.
‘Don’t be afraid… write…’ (Rev 1:17-19). The
juxtaposition of awareness of the living God’s
presence, submissive worship, and being accepted and
commissioned with a message provides a pattern
readily transposable to worship contexts in general.
‘Open My Eyes’ The God who ‘is seen’ is also the One who ‘sees’.
Ezekiel’s vision narrative opens with ‘I looked, and I
saw’ (1:6), but
this is a vision that likewise sees (cf. Ps. 11:4),
Not only the wheels but the living creatures
themselves are replete with eyes (1:18, 10, 12)
… But, of course, that which is seen (“the
appearance of the likeness of the glory of the
Lord”) sees much more clearly than does the
seer (the prophet and, in turn, the reader)
who beholds. Indeed that which is seen sees
all…. [The description] concludes with an
awareness that it is not Ezekiel who beholds
the vision so much as it is the vision that
beholds him.11
Lieb focuses this movement in arguing that the
opening ‘visions of God’ (Ezek. 1:1; a heading for the
whole book) is also ‘visions by God’.12 Ezekiel is
enabled to ‘see’ what God makes known to him,
especially what is going on in the city of Jerusalem
and the temple and what will go on with the new
temple and city whose location will be in the middle
of the land. Ezekiel is commissioned to communicate
what God shows him, initially by speech, but now
through the book before us. John too obeyed the
command to ‘write’. Today we can thus see what God
sees and what God will do.
Ezekiel is shown idolatrous worship in the city and
temple, with lack of integrity in worship mirrored in
violence and widespread injustice – and prophets who
On The Road 45, June 2010 19
proclaim ‘peace’ (e.g., 7:20; 8:3, 10-16; 11:6; 13:10).
Exposed are the false hopes of those who felt
secure (7:19-27; 11:2-4, 14-15). A later vision takes
Ezekiel to see the horrific behaviour of the leaders
in the temple (chs. 8-9) and then to see God’s glory
leaving the temple (chs. 10-11). God’s glory cannot
be bound even to his own ‘temple/palace’ – liturgy
and building are no guarantee!
There is more however than exposure of evil, for
the God whose name has been ‘profaned among
the nations’ by Israel’s actions and consequent exile
is going to act to ‘hallow my name’ so that ‘the
nations will know I am the LORD’ (36:22-23).13 He
will bring his people back from exile and cleanse
with ‘a new spirit’ (36:24-38). God’s glory’ reappears
in 39:21, foreshadowing its return to the new
temple and land in ch. 43. The future for Israel is
linked with the honour of God’s name among the
nations. Worship leads into a continuing openness
to hearing God’s word, seeing more of God’s
purposes for his people and all nations, making him
known.
This is a bold, seemingly unrealistic vision! Ezekiel
is one of a devastated minority group in exile.
Babylon’s forces have with apparent impunity
destroyed ‘the city of God’ (Pss 46, 48, 87) and its
temple, the ‘footstool’ of Yahweh’s throne (Ps. 99:1
-5; 132:7). His vision of God however enables him
to see the greater reality: ‘God’s glory’ is not
limited; he has acted in judgment and will act for
the sake of his name among the nations.
John likewise is first shown the varying states of
‘seven churches’ and God’s plans for them before
he is told to ‘come up’ to ‘the throne in
heaven’ (Rev. 4:1-2). He is given
a God’s-eye view of reality. It includes the
world we can see with the eyes in our head
(people and creatures), but also the world
we can see only with the eyes of faith (the
angelic hosts)…This is a truly cosmic
worldview, with a radically transforming
perspective for someone living in a world
where everybody saw Rome as the centre
of the known world and the Roman
emperor as the one seated on the throne of
imperial power and government.14
He sees ‘the Lamb who was slain’: it is from the
perspective of the cross that he, and we, ‘can only
make sense of the world and all the terrible events
that fill its history, past, present and yet to come’.15
It is then that John is shown ‘constant realities in
human history… conquest, war, famine and disease
in multiple forms’ but the multiple horsemen ‘are
not out of control…. That same Jesus, the Lamb who
was slain, reigns over the forces of evil that are loose in the
world, in the same way as he reigned from the cross. Nothing
can happen in human history… which [God] cannot
weave into the outworking of his universal purpose
of redeeming love for the whole creation.’16
The oft-used hymns of Revelation are found within
this context: their praise of God and of the Lamb
and their joyous linking of earthly with heavenly
worship is in the midst of experiences of turmoil
and pressures to conform, with competing
ideologies and icons. They do not belong in some
‘spiritual’ realm, an escape from ‘reality’, but rather
they are affirmations of what is an integral part of
everyday life. They are to evoke the vision that
encourages the ‘seven churches’ in responding to
their specific messages. Eyes are opened to see. The
message Ezekiel proclaims is that people can say
‘we know that he is Yahweh’ only when they give
sole covenantal allegiance worshipping Yahweh
alone and following his laws relating to both
worship and life in society.
Where God is leading history is not left without a
picture providing guidance for the future, again with
culturally appropriate images. Both Ezekiel and
John see visions that relativise and critique any
picture of immediate gratification and honour. The
new temple and land of Ezekiel 40-48 is where
‘God’s glory’ returns and resides. The size and
architecture are powerful images of welcome and
openness, while the violence and oppression of the
past by rulers and leaders, with unjust exercise of
power in commerce and business transactions, are
to be no more (Ezek. 45:7-12). Rather than
displaying wealth gained by despoiling others at the
cost of ‘human beings’ (Rev. 18: 1-13), John’s
vision of the bejeweled new Jerusalem (21:11, 18-
21) incorporates from Ezekiel’s the ‘river of life’,
nourishing the trees whose leaves ‘are for the
healing of the nations’ (Rev. 22:1-2; cf. Ezek. 47:1-
12). In both there is permanent relationship: ‘They
will be his people, and God himself will be with
them and be their God’ (Rev. 21:3; cf. Ezek. 37:23,
27).
A vision of God that transcends and critiques
human imitations, that shows his sovereignty
despite what is seen by physical eyes, that opens
eyes to see community life as God sees, exposing
false worship and oppressive injustice, that provides
a vision of the future encouraging perseverance in
faithfulness, even in times of darkness and
pressures to cultural conformity – both Ezekiel and
John had the privilege of such. That their vision is
written calls for communication to the present.
On The Road 45, June 2010 20
How is this to be worked out in worship of God
today? Here are my suggested questions for a
checklist:
• In what ways does our worship draw people to
the living God and to the Lamb? What
language and images are used? How are they
biblically informed and culturally relevant?
What current culturally dominant images of
power and success require radically subverting?
• How does the content of worship help
worshippers to have a God’s-eye view of
everyday life, local and global, with its turmoil
and pressures, exposing idolatries and
injustices?
• How is worship to provide a vision of a reality
that is more than and yet intimately connected
with the world of sight and sense and the
‘now’? And that also transforms understanding
and behaviour?
• How may use of the great hymns of Revelation
4-5 inform the common experiences of
Revelation 5-7 and the varied church situations
of Revelation 2-3?
• Where in worship is there openness to the
renewing, cleansing work of the Spirit that
leads to the name of God being hallowed
amongst the nations, so answering the prayer,
‘Hallowed be your name, your kingdom come’?
• Where is there a vision of the future that is not
escapist but encourages present following the
way of Christ?
As God in his grace enables us by his Word and Spirit
to ‘see’ him, above all in Christ, may we be enabled to
‘see’ the world around differently and to move ahead
to the certain, but ‘imaged’, future.
1Some of the Ezekiel material here is adapted from a larger article, ‘“Worship and the Presence of God: Seeing with Ezekiel”, in In Praise of Worship: An Exploration of Text and Practice, ed. M. Parsons and D. Cohen (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2010). See also “‘Hallowed be your name’: does Ezekiel speak to Essendon, Eastwood and East Fremantle?”, South Pacific Journal of Mission Studies 35 (Sept 2006): 37-43. 2B. Kowalski, Die Rezeption des Propheten Ezechiel in der Offenbarung des Johannes (Stuttgart: Verlag Katholisches Bibelwerk, 2004) after reviewing previous studies argues for the use of at least 135 verses. The structure has also been influenced, allusions following Ezekiel’s order; see I. K. Boxall, ‘Exile, Prophet, Visionary: Ezekiel’s Influence on the Book of Revelation’, in The Book of Ezekiel and its Influence, ed. H. J. de Jonge and J. Tromp (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), 149-64. 3Commentary on Ezekiel, Lecture 2,<http://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calcom22.v.v.html> (accessed 14 May 2010). 4Merkabah (‘Chariot’) mysticism, from the second century BC name given to the vision in Sirach 49:8 and Ezek. 43:3 LXX. 5C. J. H. Wright, The Message of Ezekiel (Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 2001), 45. 6L. C. Allen, Ezekiel 1-19 (Dallas: Word, 1994), 1-45, espec. 27-37, and M. S. Odell, Ezekiel (Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys, 2005), 14-51, espec. 23-31, include sketches and diagrams of relevant ancient Near Eastern iconography and representational art. 7In addition to commentaries, see G. R. Beasley-Murray, ‘Revelation, Book of’, in Dictionary of the Later New Testament and Its Developments (Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press,1997), 1025-38; J. N. Kraybill, Imperial Cult and Commerce in John's Apocalypse (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996); and R. M. Royalty, The Streets of Heaven. The Ideology of Wealth in the Apocalypse of John (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1998). 8Odell, Ezekiel., 34-37. 9M. Galli, “The Whisper of Grace”, Christianity Today <http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2010/aprilweb-only/27.41.0.html> (accessed 14 May 2010). 10B. Rosner, “‘Known by God’: The Meaning and Value of a Neglected Biblical Concept”, Tyndale Bulletin 59, 2 (2008):227. 11M.Lieb, The Visionary Mode: Biblical Prophecy, Hermeneutics, and Cultural Change (Ithaca: NY: Cornell University Press, 1991), 39. 12Ibid., 40. 13See further in ‘“Hallowed be your name” (n. 1). 14C. J. H. Wright, The God I Don’t Understand (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008), 64, in his chapter, ‘The Defeat of Evil’. 15Ibid., 65. 16Ibid., pp. 66-68; emphasis original.
On The Road 45, June 2010 21
In this book, Eric Seibert tackles head-on a question
which has long been in my mind: what are we to do
with the troubling Old Testament images of God?
The ones where, for example, God orders the
Israelites to commit genocide, killing all the men,
women and children of a town?
Seibert frames the question like an evangelical,
worried about the authority of scripture and not
willing to lightly call the Old Testament into question.
However, many evangelicals would disown him.
Instead of the standard evangelical approach of
justifying why God did these things in the Old
Testament, Seibert eventually claims God did not do
them.
Seibert starts out by outlining the problematic
portrayals of God that he is talking about. He
confines his scope to the Old Testament historical
books and divides the problematic portrayals into a
number of categories – ‘God as deadly lawgiver’ –
laws where the penalty for disobedience is death;
‘God as instant executioner’ – passages where God
instantly strikes people dead for evil; ‘God as mass
murderer’; ‘God as Divine Warrior’; ‘God as
genocidal general’; ‘God as dangerous abuser’; ‘God
as unfair afflictor’ – such as in the case of Job or
Pharaoh’s divinely hardened heart; and ‘God as divine
deceiver’, like in 1 Kings 22, where God uses
deception to persuade King Ahab to go into a battle
which will result in his death. It truly is a disturbing
catalogue of divine behaviour.
He goes on to examine ancient approaches to
disturbing divine behaviour. It’s easy to think that it’s
only more sensitive modern readers like us who are
disturbed by parts of the Old Testament, but the
reality is that Jewish readers were disturbed by some
parts before the Old Testament was even finished.
Thus, Seibert gives us the example of the writer of
God Behaving Badly? A review article
By Nathan Hobby
Disturbing Divine Behavior: Troubling Old
Testament Images of God
Eric Seibert (Fortress Press, 2009)
On The Road 45, June 2010 22
Chronicles who in 1 Chronicles 21:1 changes 2
Samuel 24:1 to say that Satan was responsible for
prompting David to take a sinful census, rather than
God. This example begs the question that if the writer
of Chronicles felt he had permission to question –
and “correct” – disturbing divine behaviour like this,
perhaps we, with the full revelation of Jesus Christ,
have similar permission?
Seibert goes on to discuss an early Christian
interpreter of disturbing divine behaviour – Marcion.
Marcion was so disturbed by the Old Testament that
he rejected its authority altogether and produced an
abbreviated New Testament, with Old Testament
references cut out. It’s a good idea for Seibert to
tackle Marcion directly, as he probably knows he’s
going to be accused of being a Marcionite. (He insists
many times that he’s not a Marcionite, that the Old
Testament still holds authority for him, but that we
must discern the truth and meaning of each text.)
Interestingly, Marcion pursued a very literal reading of
the Old Testament, more like we would make today,
and this is why Marcion found the Old Testament so
disturbing. Seibert contrasts other ancient interpreters
who made allegorical or typological readings and were
thus not disturbed by the Old Testament. Marcion
anticipated our contemporary dilemmas better than
these others; Seibert contends that although branding
him as a heretic was necessary, the problems he had
with the Old Testament came out of valid questions.
The next chapter is “Defending God’s Behaviour in
the Old Testament”, surveying approaches
evangelicals take to explain disturbing divine
behaviour, all assuming that God did and said exactly
as the Old Testament records.
• The ‘Divine immunity’ approach basically
claims that by definition anything God does is
good and right and thus morally defensible. It
usually appeals to how little as humans we
understand of God’s ways. Seibert sees this
approach as inadequate because it restricts
honest inquiry about the character of God. It
actually dishonours God by claiming he acted
in ways that are inconsistent with our basic
beliefs about what is right – we have to
redefine evil behaviour as ‘good’. But ‘is
genocide ever good?’ (p.74)
• Another approach is ‘the just cause approach’,
supplying a rationale for God’s behaviour – for
example, the sin of the Canaanites was so bad
they needed to be slaughtered. But what about
babies? And surely the responses to some
particular offenses are out of proportion – like
Uzziah in 2 Samuel 6:1-11 who steadied the
ark and was struck dead?
• ‘The greater good approach’ argues that in
these cases God was preventing a greater evil.
Seibert suggests that there is nothing more evil
than causing everyone to perish in a flood.
• ‘The “God acted differently in the Old
Testament” approach’ argues for a
discontinuity between God’s past and present
behaviour. ‘If God wanted to be known in
Israel, God had to communicate to people in
ways they could understand, even if that meant
getting involved in messy human affairs like
warfare and killing.’ (p.81) It relies on the idea
of progressive revelation, on the Israelites only
receiving a partial understanding of God’s
character. But if God instructed the Israelites
to commit genocide just because that was all
they could understand at their stage in
development, our questions about God’s
character aren’t answered at all.
• ‘The permissive will approach’ claims that
God’s instructions to violence were a
compromise because of Israel’s disobedience.
Because of Israel’s sinfulness, they are not
given God’s perfect will, but a compromise on
his will. This approach doesn’t actually rescue
the text (it still inaccurately reports what God
wants by failing to mention these things are
not his perfect will) or God’s behaviour (He
still does these disturbing things).
Coming as he does from an Anabaptist tradition, it
seems strange to me that Seibert doesn’t spend longer
addressing the approach of the important Anabaptist
thinker, John Howard Yoder. It’s my impression that
Yoder offers a way of reading the Bible that is
different to any of the approaches Seibert discusses.
Yoder approaches biblical texts from the ground up,
finding their inspiration or theological truth in the
way the writer has taken the prevailing cultural
standards and worldview and transformed them. In
each case, Yoder finds a trajectory toward God’s full
revelation in Christ. In The Original Revolution, Yoder
deals explicitly with one of Seibert’s test cases – that
of Yahweh ordering Abraham to sacrifice Isaac.
Yoder doesn’t even permit us to ask the question of
whether Yahweh actually asked Abraham to do this.
Instead, he points out that human sacrifice was not a
moral issue for the ancient reader. It is not the point
of the story at all. Instead, the point is that Yahweh
calls Abraham to give up the very means through
which Yahweh was going to fulfil his promise to
make Abraham the father of many nations – a son.
Whether it was ethical to sacrifice a human was not a
permissible question for the ancient Israelite. Yoder
doesn’t expect the text to conform to his own ethical
On The Road 45, June 2010 23
expectations of God. Debating its historicity is a
sidetrack for him. His viewpoint has the potential to
undo a lot of Seibert’s assumptions, and I would like
to see some engagement with it. However, I find
Yoder’s point elusive - he doesn’t flesh it out; people
aren’t going to respond to his solution in the same
way many will resonate with Seibert’s.
That solution of Seibert’s to disturbing divine
behaviour is a christocentric hermeneutic. He
acknowledges that the New Testament itself has some
trouble images of divine behaviour. But he insists that
we can trust the depiction of Jesus in the New
Testament and use him, as the fullest revelation of
God, as a guide to interpreting disturbing divine
behaviour. Guiding our reading of the Old Testament
should be the picture of God revealed by Jesus.
• Jesus reveals a God who is kind to the wicked
– such as when he calls on us to love our
enemies. This aspect of God’s character is only
sometimes revealed in the OT.
• Jesus reveals a God who is nonviolent – again
the command to love our enemies; throughout
the gospels, Jesus never endorses or promotes
the idea of God as a divine warrior. He lived
non-violently himself and rejected violence as a
way to achieve justice. Ultimately, Jesus’
nonviolence is revealed in his death on the
cross.
• Jesus reveals a God who does not judge
people by causing historical (or natural)
disasters or serious physical infirmities – recall
Luke 13:1-5, where people ask Jesus what sin
the Galileans committed that God let them be
killed by Pilate; Jesus responds by saying that
those people were no worse than the rest of us.
• Jesus reveals a God of love – a depiction that
has its roots in the Old Testament, but reaches
its fullest expression in Jesus and in reflections
upon Jesus in the New Testament.
Seibert goes on to show his dual hermeneutic in
practice – critiquing disturbing texts with a
christocentric hermeneutic, but also affirming them
by seeking to find what is ‘salvageable’ from such
passages.
His final chapter offers some practical suggestions for
‘talking about troubling texts’:
• Stop trying to justify God’s behaviour in the
Old Testament – a suggestion that will
immensely liberating for me, if I can follow
him to here.
• Acknowledge how these texts have fostered
oppression and violence
• Help people use problematic images
responsibly and constructively
• Keep disturbing divine behaviour in
perspective – that is, remember how much of
the Old Testament is not troubling.
Seibert has an appendix dealing with Jesus’
eschatological sayings and whether they can be said to
reveal a nonviolent God. Strangely, his treatment of
hell doesn’t even consider universalism as an option –
that is, the idea that ultimately God will reconcile all
people to himself. To do so would seem to me to
push scripture no further than he already has.
Seibert’s book gripped me. For once I found myself
unable to put down a theology book, when many are
something of a chore to read. His writing style is
engaging and he structures things logically, with many
interesting insights along the way.
In the end, I think I basically agree with Seibert,
although Yoder’s approach of reading the text on the
ground with the Israelites should be used in
conjunction with it. I say ‘I think’ because of my
evangelical origins. It shows a perversity of the
evangelical mindset that I am not only disturbed by
the idea that God ordered the Israelites to slaughter
Canaanites, but also by the idea that he did not do so,
if that means that a particular Old Testament story is,
in an important sense, wrong.
On The Road 45, June 2010 24
According to the famous evangelist, Stanley Jones, the
scriptures are not ‘the Word of God’; it is Jesus who is ‘the
Word of God’. He says
we honour the Bible, for it leads us to his feet.
But the Bible is not the revelation of God. It is
the inspired record of the revelation. The revela-
tion we have seen in the face of Jesus Christ.
“You search the scriptures, imagining you pos-
sess eternal life in their pages - and they do tes-
tify to me - but you refuse to come to me for
life.” (John 5v39). Eternal life is not in the pages;
it is in Christ who is uncovered through the
pages.1
If we focus on Christ - as Stanley Jones suggests we do -
and we look at Christ’s attitude to the scriptures, it is clear
that Jesus got a lot of his significant ideas from the Hebrew
Bible. After all he said: ‘Do unto others as you’d have them do to
you - for this is the law and prophets’ (Matt 7.12)
However Jesus did not treat all the ideas in the Hebrew
Bible as equally significant. Jesus treated the Hebrew Bible
as his authority (Matt 5.17-20) but interpreted the law according
to the prophets - especially the prophet Isaiah - whom he quoted
when at the start of his ministry. (Luke 4.18-19)
In the book of Isaiah there is a very distinctive revelation of
the character of God that describes the God of Israel, in a
way Jesus wanted the people of Israel to take as their
framework of faith.
According to the bible scholar, Water Brueggemann, God
reactions to the plight of his people is portrayed very differ-
ently throughout the scriptures. In the book of Genesis,
God’s reaction to Abraham’s plea for help is portrayed as
‘unresponsive’. Leaving Abraham to question God’s character:
‘Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?’(Gen.18:25)2 In
the book of Jeremiah God’s reaction to Jeremiah’s plea for
help is portrayed as ‘uncompromising’. There is a mercy, but it
is ‘a severe mercy’.3 Leaving Jeremiah to accuse God of
ripping him off. ‘O Lord, you deceived me, and I was de-
ceived.’ (Jer.20.7) In the book of Job, God’s reaction to
Job’s plea for help is portrayed as ‘incomprehensible’. Job is
affirmed for having spoken ‘what is right’ (Job 42:7-8), but
his questions are left unanswered – or, what is worse, an-
swered unsatisfactorily. ‘This is a God, who when asked
about justice, responds with a description of a crocodile’.4
Leaving Job feeling thoroughly puzzled and totally dis-
placed by God’s assertions.5 However, in the book of
Isaiah, there is a consensus among scholars that God’s reac-
tions to Israel’s pleas for help are portrayed as
‘compassionate’. God’s responses portrayed in Isaiah’s
‘salvation oracles’ start with terms of endearment – like ‘my
chosen ones’ (Isa.41:8-9); then move on to statements of
assurance – ‘do not fear’, ‘fear not’ (Isa.41.10); and then
move on to promises of real help -‘Do not be dismayed, for
I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will
uphold you with my righteous right hand.’ (Isa.41.10)6 It is
Isaiah’s portrayal of God that is Jesus’ portrayal of God.
Most of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount is based on the book
of Isaiah. When interpreting the scriptures in his Sermon,
Jesus’ Isaiah-inspired prophetic portrayal of a compassion-
ate God leads Jesus to advocate the spirit of the law, rather
than the letter of the law:
• Jesus explains the law as guidelines for love – love of God
and love of neighbour (Matt 22.34-40)
• Jesus emphasizes ethics over ceremony and ritual – compare
Amos 5.21-24 and Matt 21.12-17
• Jesus stresses that righteousness mean justice -radically
inclusive and egalitarian (Luke 4.18-19)
• Jesus always focuses on the heart of the issue – the causes -
not symptoms - of injustice (Matt 7.18-23)
As far as Jesus is concerned, the ‘greatest’ commandment in
the Old Testament is to ‘Love the Lord your God with all
your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’
This is the first and greatest commandment. And the sec-
ond is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself. All the law
and the prophets hang on these two commandments.’ (Matt 22.37-
40) So, as far as Jesus is concerned, everything in the Old
Testament needed to be interpreted in the light of these
two commandments. Jesus seemed to have no qualms
about quoting only the bits of scripture that he thought
were consonant with these commandments (Luke 4:18-19
from Isa.61:1-2) and/or contradicting those bits of scrip-
ture he thought were not consistent with these command-
ments (Matt.5:38-39).
Questions for meditation and discussion
1. What would it mean for us to see Jesus as the Word
of God?
2. What would it mean for us to use Jesus as our her-
meneutic to interpret the scriptures?
3. What would it mean for us to use Jesus’ hermeneu-
tic to interpret the scriptures like Jesus did?
Jesus and Scripture By Dave Andrews
1S. Jones, The Way (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1947), p52 2W. Brueggemannn, Finally Comes The Poet (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989) p57-8. 3Ibid p59-60 4Ibid p61 5Ibid p62 6Ibid p63-64
On The Road 45, June 2010 25
Christianity, Christi-Anarchy & Killing By Dave Andrews
I’ve just been reading a book called On Killing. It’s a study
about killing in combat. And it is not written by a pacifist
propagandist, but by a credible military paratrooper
psychologist named Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman.1
Grossman cites research that suggests that - contrary to
some of our most famous cultural stereotypes - ‘the vast
majority of men are not born killers’ (p.31). At most only
2% of men could be considered aggressive psychopathic
personalities with a predisposition towards killing (p.189).
This statistic is reflected in the kill figures of fighter pilots
in World War II, where only 1% of fighter pilots
accounted for more than 40% of all enemy planes shot
down (p.110).
Grossman quotes Brigadier S.L.A. Marshall, whose study
of soldiers’ conduct in World War II suggests ‘that the
average healthy individual has such a resistance towards
killing a fellow man that he will not of his own volition
take life if it is possible to turn away from that
responsibility’ (p.1). A view that is reflected in the shots-
per-soldier and the kills-per-shot recorded in every major
war from the Civil War through to World War I up until
World War II. During this period, when it became
possible to measure shots fired in combat, research has
showed that the vast majority of soldiers - between 75 and
95% - either did not fire their weapon – even when fired
upon – or only fired into the air – refusing to kill the
enemy – even when given orders to do so (p.3).
In Civil War times, conscience-stricken soldiers had the
option of pretending to fire - that is, loading up their
muskets, mimicking the movements of a firing soldier
next to them, and pretending to recoil. These soldiers
would then be carrying loaded weapons or would have
loaded their weapons multiple times. When the fighting at
Gettysburg was over, 27,574 muskets were found on the
battlefield. Over 90% were loaded. Given that loading a
weapon took roughly twenty times as long as firing it, the
chances of these muskets representing mostly soldiers cut
down just as they intended to shoot are slim. But then
how do you explain the 12,000 multiply-loaded weapons,
with 6,000 of them loaded with 3-10 rounds apiece? The
most obvious answer is these soldiers could not fire their
weapons. “Most soldiers were trying not to kill the enemy.
Most appear to have not wanted to fire in the enemy’s
general direction.”(p.23)
The Battle of Gettysburg is considered one of America's
bloodiest battles, but as Grossman shows, it could have
been a great deal bloodier. Averages and estimates suggest
that during Napoleonic and Civil War times, an entire
regiment, firing from a range of thirty yards, would hit
only one or two men a minute.
Let's break down the numbers. A regiment contains
between 200 and 1,000 men. A soldier operating at peak
efficiency could get off 1-5 shots per minute. During
training, these soldiers were 25% accurate at 225 yards,
40% accurate at 150 yards, and 60% accurate at 70 yards.
So, taking the most modest of these estimates - a 200 man
regiment shooting once per minute with 25% accuracy -
you would expect to see about 50 hits, which would be
more than 25 times greater than that which actually
happened.
As one officer observed, ‘It seems strange that a company
of men can fire volley after volley at a like number of men
at not over a distance of fifteen steps and not cause a
single casualty. Yet such was the facts in this
instance.’ (p.20) What was happening? Soldiers were
resorting to a range of options that meant that they didn't
have to kill. Some fell back to support positions. A few
faked injury or ran away. Many fired into the air.
Colonel Milton Mater’s uncle said the most significant fact
he could remember about his combat experience in the
World War I was ‘draftees who wouldn’t shoot’ (p.29).
Gwynne Dyer says that apart from ‘the occasional
psychopath who really wants to slice people open’ most
On The Road 45, June 2010 26
soldiers on both sides of World War II were interested in
‘damage limitation’ (p.6). And ‘all forces had somewhere
near the same rate of non-firers’ (p.16).
According to Brigadier Marshall ‘At the vital point’ (when
a soldier has to decide to fire or not) the average healthy
individual ‘becomes a conscientious objector.’ (p.1) [emphasis
mine]
When the military realized what was happening, they
embarked on a new program to turn their soldiers into
killers. They knew that while they couldn’t change the
vast majority of men’s natural aversion to killing, they
could put could soldiers under sustained systematic
pressure to kill through five strategies.
1. Reframing killing as saving lives
As it has become clear that most people are motivated to
serve and to preserve life, the military has taken the
desire to serve and preserve life and used it to make
people killers by telling them that killing is the only way
they can the save the lives of those they love. Soldiers in
Iraq are told killing terrorists is the only way to save the
lives of civilians.
2. Portraying the enemy as sub-human
In World War II, it became clear that soldiers found it
harder to kill people they could identify with and easier to
kill people they couldn’t identify with. Only 6% of
Americans said they wanted to kill Germans; while 44%
said they wanted to kill the Japanese (p.162). So in recent
times, the military has encouraged soldiers to see the
enemy as ‘ragheads’ rather than humans (p.161). As it
has become clear it is harder for soldiers to kill people
who are innocent; but easier to kill people who are guilty,
‘ragheads’ are deemed bloodthirsty, baby killers in
advance (p.165).
3. Increasing the distance between the trigger and
the target
Most soldiers find it difficult to kill up close and personal.
It has always been easier to kill from a distance and to
pretend its not personal. Sailors shoot up ‘ships’. Aviators
shoot down ‘planes’ (p.58). The artillery attack enemy
‘lines’ (p.58). ‘They can pretend they are not killing
human beings.’ (p.108)
Through technology, the military is increasing the
distance between the trigger and the target as quickly as it
can. Through night goggles for example when a soldiers
shoots someone they say it’s just like shooting on a TV
show - ‘as if its happening on a TV screen’ (p.170).
4. Demanding every soldier’s obedience to their
leader
Sigmund Freud said ‘never underestimate the power of
the need to obey’ (p.142). Those with no combat
experience presume that ‘being fired upon’ was the reason
most soldiers fired. However, veterans of combat say that
being ‘ordered to fire’ was the reason most soldiers fired
(p.143). Without an order to fire soldiers many soldiers
would not fire, even when they came face to face with the
enemy in combat (p.144).
Stanley Milgram‘s experiments at Yale prove that more
than 65% of people will obey authority figures to the
point of inflicting (seemingly) lethal shocks on strangers
(p.141).
Gwynne Dyer said in his book on war that while ‘the vast
majority of men are not born killers’; nonetheless ‘men
will kill under compulsion – men will do almost anything
if they know it is expected of them and they are under
strong social pressure to comply’ (p.31).
Since Marshall’s report on surprisingly low firing rates, the
military have tried to increase soldiers’ compliance with
orders to fire through social learning, classical
conditioning and operant conditioning.
Through social learning, soldiers have been socialized to
imitate role models like the ANZAC legends who obeyed
orders to attack impregnable positions in Gallipoli - even
when it was obvious to everyone that the orders were
insane and to obey them was suicidal (p.306). Through the
classical conditioning devised by Pavlov to make dogs
salivate at the sound of a bell, soldiers have been
conditioned to associate obeying the orders of drill
sergeants with rewards (pleasure), and disobeying orders
with punishment (pain) And through behavioural
engineering devised by Skinner to make rats through
mazes soldiers have been engineered to increase their
automatic quick shoot reflex by repeatedly shooting at
targets which look like people in simulated battlefield
conditions to such a degree that an average infantryman
now has a 95% shot-per-soldier rate and a marksmen now
has a 1.39 kill-per-shot ratio (p.255-6).
5. Developing each unit’s capacity for collective
violence
Research has shown that the greatest fear of a man in
combat is not the fear of death but of ‘letting others
down’ (p.52).
So the military have used peer pressure – along
with the intensification of power and the
diffusion of responsibility that a group provides
(‘there were so many guys firing, you can never be
sure it was you’ who killed someone) - to turn
men into killers. Konrad Lorenz says: ‘Man is not
a killer, but the group is.’(p.151-152)
Grossman concludes his book On Killing by saying that the
same techniques used by the military are now being used
by the media in society at large - and that not only
soldiers, but also civilians, are being socialized to kill
On The Road 45, June 2010 27
without constraints by watching movie heroes like Dirty
Harry kill outside the constraints of the law (p.325); being
desensitized to the act of killing by seeing thousands of
people killing on television (p.329); and being engineered
to kill reflexively by shooting at human targets with model
guns in life-like video games (p.319). Grossman says ‘we
are learning to kill and learning to like it’(p.315) [emphasis
mine].
The Christi-Anarchy
Alternative I would like suggest that in our culture that while mainline
Christianity supports the basic assumptions that make it
possible to program men to kill like this, the sensibility
nurtured by Christi-Anarchy would make such a social
construction of killing totally impossible. Christi-Anarchy
is nothing more or less than a Christ-like sensibility.2
I would like to suggest while the ideology of Christianity
supports the basic assumptions that make it possible to
program men to kill, the Christ-like sensibility of Christi-
Anarchy not only opposes that set of assumptions, but
also provides a set of disciplines which can help us disrupt
the operations which make such a social construction of
killing possible.
Christianity aids and abets the training of people as killers
by making it acceptable, if regrettable, to kill; increasing
the distance between ‘us’ and ‘them’ so we do not see the
humanity of the ‘other’; teaching us to submit to the
authorities, keep the rules and obey the leaders; and
encouraging us to conform to the groups that we happen
to be a part of.
However Christi-Anarchy critiques and challenges the
training of people as killers by making it unacceptable to
kill anyone in any circumstance; decreasing the distance
between ‘us’ and ‘them’ so that we see the humanity of the
‘other’- even our ‘enemies’; teaching us to submit yet
subvert the authorities, keep some rules but break others
and only obey leaders up to a point; and encouraging us
not to conform to the groups we happen to be a part of.
If we want to prevent the continued social construction of
killing in our society, we need to help the ‘conscientious
objector’ at the heart of ‘every healthy individual man and
woman’.
1. We need to be clear Christ calls us to be willing to
die - but to never kill for our faith
The patron saint of conscientious objectors must surely
be the illustrious Martin of Tours.
Martin was born about 316 in Sabaria, in Hungary. His
father was a tribune in the Imperial Horse Guard of the
Roman Army, and named his son ‘Martin’ after ‘Mars’, the
god of war.
Martin showed an interest in Christianity from an early age;
but his father was suspicious of Christianity and
discouraged his son from pursuing his interest. However,
at the age of ten, against his father’s wishes, Martin went to
the church, knocked on the door, and begged them to take
him as a catechumen or candidate for baptism. In
contemplative prayer, the young Martin said he found the
spirituality he was looking for.
At the time, there was a law that made it mandatory for the
sons of veterans to serve in the Roman Army. So, at the
age of fifteen, Martin was forced to join the military.
Martin refused to cooperate. He was put in chains until he
promised he would take the orders he was given. He was
then assigned to a cavalry unit. While in the army, Martin
tried to live like a monk rather than a soldier. As an officer,
he was entitled to a servant, but he switched roles with his
servant, cleaning his servant's boots instead of the other
way round.
Around 334, Martin was sent as an officer to do garrison
duty in Gaul (now France). On one bitter winter day, while
Martin - fully dressed in his warm military winter gear -
was riding towards the gates of Amiens, he came across a
ragged beggar - whose clothes were in tatters – freezing,
half-naked, in the cold. Martin was overcome with
compassion. He took off his beautiful, white, lambs-wool,
officer’s cloak, slashed it in two with his sword, wrapped
one half of it round the beggar and then draped the other
half back around his own shoulders. That night Martin had
a dream. In that dream he saw Jesus wearing the half of the
lambs wool cloak he had given to the beggar, and heard
Jesus saying to the saints who were crowding round him:
“Look at this cloak, Martin the catechumen gave it to me!”
When he awoke, Martin went and got baptised
straightaway. But it would be two more years before
Martin could leave the legion and follow his vocation.
In the meantime, Martin struggled with the conflicting
demands of trying to live as a ‘soldier of Christ’ in a
Roman Legion. The conflict came to a head when the
Franks invaded the northern borders of the empire, and
Martin refused to fight, saying: "Put me in the front of the
army, without weapons or armour; but I will not draw
sword again. I am become the soldier of Christ." His
commander said he was more than happy to grant Martin’s
his request; and put him in prison until he was ready to
send Martin to the front.
However, the next day the Franks made peace; and Martin
was discharged from the army.
Martin became a bishop and continued his campaign
against killing for the rest of his life.5
2. We need to decrease the personal and relational
distance between ‘us’ and ‘them’ and to see the
humanity of the ‘other’- especially the humanity of
our ‘enemies’
Following in the footsteps of Martin were a bunch of
On The Road 45, June 2010 28
soldiers on the front in World War I.
In 1914, trenches occupied by French and Scottish troops
lay a few metres away from their German counterparts.
On Christmas Day a magical event occurred that would
forever emblazon the history books with a moment of
humanity in the midst of the brutality. The Germans
placed Christmas trees above their trench, while Scottish
bagpipers played along to the operatic voices they heard
wafting over from the German camp. Then, miraculously,
the men from both sides climbed out of their trenches
and met one another in No Man’s Land for a Christmas
celebration. The enemies made friends, showed each
other pictures of their lovers, and played soccer in the
snow with one another. When ordered to commence
hostilities again the next day the men refused to fire on
one another. The officers were disciplined and their units
were disbanded.
3.We need to submit yet subvert the authorities, keep
some rules but break others and only obey leaders to
the degree that their demands reflect real love for our
neighbours
An unknown solider in World War II acted like Martin
and paid the ultimate price.
In the Netherlands, the Dutch tell of a German
soldier who was a member of an execution squad
ordered to shoot innocent hostages. Suddenly he
stepped out of rank and refused to participate in
the execution. On the spot he was charged with
treason by the officer in charge and was placed
with the hostages, where he was promptly
executed by his comrades. He responded in the
crucial moment to the voice of conscience
(refused to obey his orders) and those who hear of
the episode cannot fail to be inspired.4
Dave Grossman says: ‘This – ultimately - may be the price of
noncompliance for men of conscience. (In) overcoming obedience-
demanding-authority and the instinct for self preservation, this
German soldier gives us hope for mankind.’ (p.228) [emphasis
mine]
4. We need to refuse to conform to group pressure,
the intensification of power and the diffusion of
responsibility which turns groups of people into
killing machines.
The best contemporary example of a Martin of Tours that
I know is Bruce French from Tasmania. When he was
conscripted as a soldier to fight in the Vietnam War,
Bruce joined the infantry, as he felt that as a follower of
Jesus he should not use his conscientious objection to the
war as an excuse to avoid the dangers other young men
were being forced to face. However, as a follower of
Jesus, Bruce decided that while he was prepared to face
the dangers of combat with the unit he was part of, he
was not prepared to pick up a rifle in anger, let alone fire
it at anyone, regardless of how much pressure he was put
under.
So Bruce went through basic training for the military at
the Enoggera Army Barracks with a steadfast refusal to
pick up his rifle. As you can imagine, Bruce was ridiculed,
bullied, and abused right throughout his basic training.
But his steadfast refusal to pick up his rifle under any
circumstances was unshakable – his rock-solid resolve
absolutely unbreakable.
Other men in his unit really gave him a hard time - until
the day they had to do bayonet practice. Then, when they
were confronted with the brutality of thrusting the
bayonet on their rifle into the vital organs of a living
breathing human being, they were forced to face the
violence of killing. And that night, he said, they came to
him quietly, one by one, and told him, that now they
understood why he had taken the stand that he had. And
never gave him a hard time again.
The war was over before his unit was sent to the front, so
Bruce never had the chance to test his resolve in combat.
But as most soldiers say that their fear of letting their unit
down is greater than their fear of facing up to enemy fire,
I think Bruce would have stood the test.
Conclusion If we want to stop the continued social construction of
killing in our society, I believe the best way we can do it is
to advocate Christi-Anarchy - the radical, sacrificial,
nonviolent compassion of Christ, which is committed to
the care of friends and enemies alike, over against the
commands of the authorities and demands of their
agencies to do otherwise.
BIBLIOGRAPHY Dave Andrews Christi-Anarchy (Tafina Press: Armidale,
1999).
____ Not Religion But Love (Tafina Press: Armidale, 1999).
____ People Of Compassion (TEAR Australia: Blackburn,
2008).
Dave Grossman On Killing (Back Bay Books, Little, Brown
and Company: New York, 2009).
1Dave Grossman On Killing Back Bay Books, Little, Brown and Company New York 2009. 2Dave Andrews Not Religion But Love Tafina Press Armidale 1999, p6.. 3Dave Andrews ‘Martin Of Tours’ in People Of Compassion TEAR Blackburn 2008 p.7-9. 4Dave Grossman (2009) p.227-8.
On The Road 45, June 2010 29
Member Profile: Gary and Eleanor Baker
1. What interests you most about Anabaptism?
We became interested in Anabaptism by being part of
a Mennonite Anabaptist community. In 1989, while
in North Carolina USA, we were welcomed to the
Durham Mennonite Church community by people
who were humble, honest, and dedicated to lives of
Christian discipleship.
It felt as though a great light showed us a different
way of living and being. Three features stood out.
Truth was the first and clearest feature. Tricks, mir-
rors and hypocrisy were gone. Extraordinary that the
teachings, stories, and actions of Jesus could be the
template for the way of our life. Challenging that non
-violence is a central component of discipleship.
There was wonderful feeling of coming home in this
faith community.
Interest in Anabaptism has grown ever since, through
history, stories, meeting, talking with people through
the Anabaptist networks (AAANZ) and the larger
faith community
2. Favourite part of Bible?
The New Testament, particularly the Gospels is the
favourite part of the Bible. Of the Gospels, John
chapters 14 -17. stand out, with the focus on commu-
nity - the coming of the Holy Spirit, the metaphor of
the vine, and Jesus’ prayer.
3. Least favourite part of Bible?
The Old Testament has been a challenge
4. Your church involvement, present and/or past?
We both grew up in Christian families and Eleanor –
Methodist in Queenstown, South Africa, and Gary –
Anglican Sunday School in Sydney, Australia but both
moved away from Christianity in early adulthood.
Whilst undertaking post-doctoral studies in North
Carolina, we were attracted to, joined, and were bap-
tised in the Durham Mennonite Church 1987-8. After
we returned to Sydney we joined Mark & Mary Hurst,
On The Road 45, June 2010 30
and their family to form the Sydney Mennonite Fel-
lowship in 1990-92. In 1992 we moved to Armidale,
New England, and joined the St Mark’s Chapel, at the
University of New England. Since 1995 we have been
involved with the AAANZ in different ways
5. How do you spend your time – work, study, etc? Any
thoughts how it fits in with your faith?
We work in a consultant physician medical practice in
Armidale. We feel privileged that our faith and work
can be so close; as we try to meet health needs of the
people we live with. Until recently much time was
spent with our children, but since our children have
recently left home, we are adjusting.
6. A book or a writer who has inspired you in your disciple-
ship?
Two books had a significant impact on our early disci-
pleship. John Howard Yoder’s– What would you do? A
Serious Answer to a Standard Question was studied in a
small group in the Durham Mennonite Church. The
book opened our eyes to the possibilities of non-
violent responses to violence, and helped our commit-
ment to Christ’s call to non-violence in all forms. The
other book is the Mennonite Cook Book, More with
Less, by Doris Longacre, which encouraged us to con-
sume less so others could eat enough. Both books
reached out to other people, challenged the prevailing
USA culture and were Christian responses at personal
and institutional levels.
Other writers, Robert Banks, Athol Gill, and Chris
Marshall, have been inspirational.
7. Politics?
Independent – Labor spectrum.
8. Pastimes?
We live on a small property, a “hobby farm” on the
outskirts of Armidale. We graze sheep and/or cattle,
have chooks, vegetable gardens, rely on tank water,
and deal with our waste. A significant part of our free
time is spent in these activities. We still enjoy walking,
particularly with overnight stops, cycling, swimming,
and surfing. Eleanor is a quilter, knitter, and stitcher
with a number of projects on the go at any time.
Sheep on the Bakers’ farm
On The Road 45, June 2010 31
BOOKS
Doug Hynd’s review Stuart Murray has been a central figure in the
Anabaptist Network in the United Kingdom and has
made a highly significant contribution to current
debate on Christian mission and the church after
Christendom. Students in my subject Christianity and
Australian Society who have read his challenging work
Post-Christendom: Church and Mission in a Strange New
World have responded enthusiastically to his account
of the time in which we find ourselves.
In much of Stuart’s writing Anabaptism has provided
the lens through which he has viewed issues of
church and mission. In The Naked Anabaptist he turns
his attention to examine the structure and character of
the lens. Understanding the role of metaphors is
important for understanding what Murray is doing
here.
Anabaptism till the late twentieth century has been
largely clothed in the ethnic garb provided by the
Mennonites and the Amish with their historic roots in
16th century Europe. The scholarship and
publications of John Howard Yoder has almost
certainly done more than any other factor to raise the
possibility that this form of clothing was not of the
essence of the movement.
What, Murray asks, might Anabaptism look like if
stripped of that specific ethnic clothing? This way of
asking the question does not mean that he thinks
there is, or could be, any such thing as a pure
Anabaptism free of cultural form, or uninfluenced by
historical and social expression.
Though Murray uses the chapter heading “The
Essence of Anabaptism” he undercuts any easy
assumption of an “essence” of Anabaptism that could
be intellectually distilled from the lived reality. Indeed
he acknowledges that
… there is strictly no such things as a “naked
Anabaptist”. Anabaptist values and practices
are always clothed in particular cultures. …
these values are worked out in fresh ways in
parts of the world where Mennonite
missionaries have shared their faith and
planted churches … and Anabaptism looks
different again in post-Christendom societies
in which Christians today are reappropriating
its values and practices. (pp.43-44)
That said, Murray argues that it can be helpful to strip
back historical and cultural trappings that have
become encrusted on the traditions as they have
developed across the centuries. Such an exercise can
enable us to glimpse afresh, he argues, what brought
the tradition into existence and continues to attract
people to the tradition. What results from this
exercise is in fact an account of an Anabaptism that is
being shaped by the experience of a Christian
community becoming aware that it is moving,
however uncertainly, into a post-Christendom reality.
The account of “naked Anabaptism” that he offers us
is shaped explicitly as a commentary on the seven
core convictions developed by the Anabaptist
The Naked Anabaptist: The Bare Essentials of a
Radical Faith
Stuart Murray (Herald Press, 2010)
The Naked Anabaptist
The publication of this book is so important to Anabaptism in
our context that we’re featuring two reviews, covering different
angles.
On The Road 45, June 2010 32
Network in the United Kingdom. The convictions,
that have been found to be valuable by AAANZ as a
helpful guide to Anabaptism, are:
1. Jesus is our example, teacher, friend,
redeemer and Lord. He is the source of our
life, the central reference point for our faith
and lifestyle, for our understanding of church
and our engagement with society. We are
committed to following Jesus as well as
worshipping him.
2. Jesus is the focal point of God’s revelation.
We are committed to a Jesus-centred
approach to the Bible, and to the community
of faith as the primary context in which we
read the Bible and discern and apply its
implications for discipleship.
3. Western culture is slowly emerging from
the Christendom era when church and state
jointly presided over a society in which
almost all were assumed to be Christian.
Whatever its positive contributions on values
and institutions, Christendom seriously
distorted the gospel, marginalised Jesus, and
has left the churches ill-equipped for mission
in a post-Christendom culture. As we reflect
on this, we are committed to learning from
the experience and perspectives of
movements such as Anabaptism that rejected
standard Christendom assumptions and
pursued alternative ways of thinking and
behaving.
4. The frequent association of the church
with status, wealth and force is inappropriate
for followers of Jesus and damages our
witness. We are committed to exploring ways
of being good news to the poor, powerless
and persecuted, aware that such discipleship
may attract opposition, resulting in suffering
and sometimes ultimately martyrdom.
5. Churches are called to be committed
communities of discipleship and mission,
places of friendship, mutual accountability
and multi-voiced worship. As we eat together,
sharing bread and wine, we sustain hope as
we seek God’s kingdom together. We are
committed to nurturing and developing such
churches, in which young and old are valued,
leadership is consultative, roles are related to
gifts rather than gender and baptism is for
believers.
6. Spirituality and economics are inter-
connected. In an individualist and
consumerist culture and in a world where
economic injustice is rife, we are committed
to finding ways of living simply, sharing
generously, caring for creation, and working
for justice.
7. Peace is at the heart of the gospel. As
followers of Jesus in a divided and violent
world, we are committed to finding non-
violent alternatives and to learning how to make
peace between individuals, within and among
churches, in society, and between nations.
The core of the book is devoted to four chapters that
expound the meaning and significance of these
convictions.
The final two chapters in the book change gear and are
devoted to a brief account of the emergence of the
original Anabaptists, a survey of its weaknesses as they
have been historically manifested and an account of
spirituality and discipleship in Anabaptism today. The
book also includes an appendix with a short list of
resources and websites and a helpful study guide that
would make this very useful for group discussions.
This is a really valuable book written in highly accessible
language. Beyond those who are directly interested in
Anabaptism this would provide a good introduction to
contemporary Christian discipleship more broadly.
One passage in the chapter on following Jesus spoke
powerfully to me and I will quote at length to give you a
sense of the author’s style.
Maybe we need to stop calling ourselves
‘Christians’. Not only is the term compromised
by its associations and debased by overuse, it is
also rather presumptuous. Who are we to claim
that we are like Christ? If others want to refer to
us in this way, because they see us as Christlike,
well and good - this seems to have been how
the term was first used (see Acts 11:26). But
maybe we need a term that is both purposeful
and restrained. Maybe we should claim no more
(or less) than that we are "followers of Jesus."
As followers we do not claim to have arrived at
the destination, nor need we distinguish
ourselves from others who are at different
stages of the journey. Belonging, believing and
behaving can all be interpreted as aspects of
following. Churches committed to following
Jesus welcome fellow travelers and
unconditionally. But their ethos is one of
following, learning, changing, growing, moving
forward. Together, and as we reflect on the
Gospels (and the rest of Scripture), we discover
more of what it means to follow Jesus.
Such churches may be very good news indeed
for those who need to time to work through the
implications of the story of Jesus that they have
encountered for the first time. And to those
who are more interested in lifestyle issues than
theological beliefs. And to those who "use"
journey imagery to describe their search for
spiritual meaning. And to those of us who know
we still have some way to go in following Jesus
and are grateful for the support and
encouragement of others who are on the same
journey. (p.61)
On The Road 45, June 2010 33
communities which have guarded Anabaptism for
centuries tend to be anti-intellectual – Amish, for
example, certainly don’t have much time for
intellectualism. In contrast, neo-Anabaptists tend to
have a very intellectual approach to Anabaptism and
may have come to the faith by reading (as I partly
did).
A minor quibble I have with the book is the lack of
an index. The book looks attractive, though, and has a
foreword by popular pastor-theologian, Gregory
Boyd, meaning it will hopefully sell well at Christian
bookshops. I think everyone who has an interest in
Anabaptism but doesn’t quite understand it (or can’t
put the different threads together) should read it. For
everyone identifying with the movement, it’s an
excellent book to buy in order to lend out. It’s an
especially important book for Australian and New
Zealand Anabaptists, written as it is from the same
context we find ourselves in – Anabaptists-by-choice,
without a church.
Australian Christian bookstore Koorong have listed
the book on their website; if you order from them, it
might encourage them to stock it on their shelves. If
you are buying online from Australia or New Zealand,
the best price is at Book Depository; as of 11 June
2010, it’s just under A$15, including postage.
Nathan Hobby’s review I’m excited by the publication of Stuart Murray’s The
Naked Anabaptist. It fills that big gap for Anabaptists
to explain just why they call themselves that. If
someone asks us what an Anabaptist is, the
temptation is to begin with a history lesson about the
sixteenth century Reformation. The problem is that
we probably only have about thirty seconds of
someone’s attention, and we’ve spent it all just trying
to get some bare bones down, differentiating the
original Anabaptists from the other Reformers. No
time to draw the connections to what that means for
today.
Stuart Murray avoids this problem by saving the
history lesson to the penultimate chapter, and it
works. He lays out what an Anabaptist is today and
gives some minimal historical background, before
finally unveiling the whole history at the end. A much
better approach for your average listener/ reader.
In Murray’s opening chapter, he deals with a lot of
‘But aren’ts’ that I’ve certainly heard a number of time
– ‘But aren’t Anabaptists just another denomination?’;
‘But aren’t Anabaptists hung up on the issue of
baptism?” ‘But aren’t Anabaptists separatists?’; ‘But
aren’t Anabaptists all pacifists?’ (Answers: No, No,
Sometimes but No, and No but Yes.) This chapter
also helpfully surveys the influence of Anabaptism
beyond the Mennonite Church, in countries like
Britain and Australia without a Mennonite presence –
including, gratifyingly, a mention of this journal.
From my perspective, Murray gets the essence of
Anabaptism just right. He deals with the centrality of
Jesus for ethics and reading Scripture. He explains the
Anabaptist critique of the church-state alliance and
the appropriateness of the Anabaptist model of doing
things for our post-Christendom context. He explains
an Anabaptist vision for the church, with
accountability and multi-voiced congregations two key
elements. He then sums up the Anabaptist focus on
justice and peace as central to the gospel rather than
consequences of it, or added extras.
His brief history of the Anabaptist movement is well
handled, giving an outline of the differences between
the three different geographic origins of the
movement in Europe and explaining the
denominations which arose out of this. He finishes
the book by exploring some of the weaknesses and
criticisms of the movement and affirming its value for
today.
It’s interesting that one of the weaknesses of the
movement he names is ‘intellectualism/ anti-
intellectualism’. The conservative, simple living
Stuart Murray
On The Road 45, June 2010 34
How to...SUBSCRIBE Subscription to On The Road is free; email the editor, [email protected] to be
added to the list. You will receive the quarterly On The Road by email as a pdf attachment
and occasional requests for articles or feedback.
How to…CONTRIBUTE Submissions are welcome. To contribute, please send your piece to the editor, Nathan
Hobby, [email protected]. Submissions should be in Microsoft Word (any
version) or Rich Text Format. Photos or illustrations are helpful.
For referencing please use in-text style, with author, date and page number in brackets,
followed by a bibliography at the end. Please don’t use endnotes or footnotes.
In issue 45, we’re exploring the Australian Federal Election.
Suggestions for articles:
• Anabaptist responses to the Religious Right
• What sort of involvement in parliamentary politics is appropriate for disciples of Jesus?
• Responses to particular issues—mining tax, climate change, maternity leave.
• New Zealanders are also very welcome to write about politics in their country.
The deadline will depend on when the election is called, as the publication date will be before the election.
So please get your submissions in ASAP; by 31 July should be safe. Non-themed submissions are always
welcome too.
Contributor Profiles Thanks to all our contributors who have made this issue so interesting and diverse.
Dave Andrews is a well known Christian community worker in Queensland and author
of countless books. His website is www.daveandrews.com.au
Philip Friesen is a US scholar who blogs at www.galileanfellows.org/category/friesen/.
Mark Hurst is, with wife Mary, one of the staffworkers for the AAANZ.
Doug Hynd is a public servant in Canberra and author of the blog
http://doug-subversivevoices.blogspot.com/.
Jeanette Mathews is a PhD candidate at Charles Sturt University and lives in Canberra.
John Olley is the retired principal of Vose Seminary in Perth and an Old Testament scholar. His most recent book
is a commentary on the Septuagint version of Ezekiel (Brill, 2009).
How to… JOIN If you identify with the Anabaptist impulse and want to join the Anabaptist Association of
Australia and New Zealand, visit www.anabaptist.asn.au.
Membership is open to individuals and groups who desire to make Jesus, community and
reconciliation the centre of their faith, life and work.
Membership enables you to be connected to others in the network and join tele-chats with
guest speakers from your own phone. You will also receive the quarterly prayer and contact
calendar.
There is no membership fee, but we encourage you to contribute to the association and the
work of our staffworkers, Mark and Mary Hurst.